
4 O 




"*4 O 











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MILITARY REVIEW 






OF THE 



Campaign in Virginia & gjarpjattb, 



UNDER 



G-enerals John C. Fremont, N. P. Banks, Irwin 

McDowell, Franz Sigel, John Pope, James 

S. Wadsworth, Wm. H. Halleck and 

G-eorge B. McClellan. 



i s e s 3 



FRED'K A. PETERSEN. 

He that Is truly dedicated to war 
Bath no self-lave ; nor he that loves himself 
Hath not essentially, bvt by circumstances, 
The name of valor. 



2, Contribution to % Juiure flistovtj of tl)c Unitco States. 




NEW-YORK: 

i SINCLAIR TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET, 
WHOLESALE AGENTS: \ 

( 11. DEXTER, 113 NASSAU STREET. 



PRICE 15 CE.Vl'S. 




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 186!, by F. A. Petersen, in Ilic ( lerk's Office of the Pfetricl Court of the 
Si uthern District of New-York. 



\ 



\. x 



,-v 



MILITARY REVIEW 

OF THE 

CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA & MARYLAND 

In 1863. 



On the 12th day of March, 1862, the following orders were pub- 
lished in the City of Washington : 

War Gazette Official. 
The President's General War Order No. 1. 
Executive Mansion, Washington, January 27, 1862. 

Ordered, That the 22d of February, 1862, he the day for a gen- 
eral movement of the land and naval forces of the United States 
against the insurgent forces ; that especially the army at and ahout 
Fortress Monroe, the army of the Potomac, the army of Western 
Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Ky., the flotilla at Cairo, and 
a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, he ready for a movement on that 
day. 

That all the other forces, both landed and naval, with their respect- 
ive commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to 
obey additional orders when duly given. 

That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of 
War and the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in- 
Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of the landed and 
naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibil- 
ties for the prompt execution of this order. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



The President's General War Order No. 2. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 8th, 1862. 

Ordered, That the Major-General commanding the Army of the 
Potomac proceed forthwith to organize that part of the said army 
destined to enter upon active operations, including the reserve, but 
excluding the troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington, 
into four army corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, 
as follows : 



The first corps, consisting of four divisions, by Major-General I. 
McDowell ; the second corps, consisting of three divisions, by Brig- 
adier-General Sumner ; the third corps, consisting of three divisions, 
by Brigadier-General Heintzelman ; the fourth corps, consisting of 
three divisions, by Brigadier-General Keyes. 

2d. That the divisions now commanded by the respective Generals 
form part of their respective corps. 

3d. That the 'forces left for the defence of Washington will be 
placed in command of Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, who 
shall also be Military Governor of the District of Columbia. 

4th. That this order be executed with such promptness and dis- 
patch as not to delay the commencement of the operations already 
directed to be undertaken by the Army of the Potomac. 

5th. The fifth army corps to be commanded by Major-General N. 
P. Banks, will be formed from his own and General Shields' (late 
General Lander's) divisions. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



The President's War Order No. 3. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 11th, 1862. 

Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the 
head of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered, is relieved 
from the command of the other military departments, he maintaining 
command of the Department of the Potomac. Ordered, further, that 
the departments now under the respective commands of Generals Hal- 
leck and Hunter, together with so much of that under General Buell as 
lies west of a north and south line drawn through Knoxville, Tenn., 
be consolidated, and designated the Department of the Mississippi, 
and that, until otherwise ordered, Major-General Halleck have com- 
mand of said department. Ordered, also, that the country west of 
the Department of the Potomac, and east of the Department of the 
Mississippi, be a military department to be called the Mountain De- 
partment, and that the same be commanded by Major-General Fre- 
mont. That all the commanders of Departments, after the receipt of 
this order by them respectively, report severally and directly to the 
Secretary of War, and that prompt, full, and frequent reports will be 
expected of all and each of them. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



In issuing the General War Orders above reprinted, the President 
for the first time exercised, in person, the authority as Commander- 
in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States — an authority 
which, as far as the army is concerned, he had to the last day of Oc- 
tober, 1861, delegated to General Winfield Scott, and since the first 
day of November, 1861, to General George B. McClellan, of whom, 
in his Message to Congress, December 3d, 1861, he says : " With 



3 



" the retirement of Gen Scott came the executive duty of appointing 
" in his stead a General-in-Chief for the army. It is a fortunate cir- 
" cumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I 
" know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be se- 
lected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his opinion in 
" favor of General McClellan for the position, and in this the nation 
" seemed to give an unanimous concurrence. The designation of Gene- 
ral McClellan is, therefore, in a considerable degree, the selection of 
" the country as well as of the executive, and hence there is better rea- 
" son to hope there will be given him the confidence and cordial support, 
" thus by fair implication promised, and without which he cannot, 
" with so full efficiency, save the country." 

What reason had the President to interfere personally with the 
affairs of the army, when General McClellan continued to be Gen- 
eral-in-Chief, and had been especially charged with the entire com- 
mand of the army ? It cannot be want of confidence in General 
McClellan's capacity or loyalty, because Order No. 1 leaves General 
McClellan in command of the entire army more than six weeks after 
it had been executed ; and the President could not possibly leave a 
man, whom he has reason to doubt, in so important a position. It can- 
not be the imperative necessity of issuing an order to the army which 
precluded the loss of time necessary for its communication to the 
General-in-Chief, because Order No. 1, in a military point of view, 
orders very little, if anything, except that January 22d, 1862, be the 
day for a general movement against the insurgent forces, and even 
this it modifies at once, by stating that certain six different armies 
(that is, the entire army) shall be ready for a movement on that day ; 
it next orders that the forces shall obey existing orders for the time, 
and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given ; a funda- 
mental principle in all military organizations, for the express repub- 
lication of which, in so unusual a form, there does not seem to exist 
any necessity whatever ; finally, the order informs the Secretaries of 
War and of the Navy, the Commander-in-Chief, and all other com- 
manders and subordinates, that they will be held to strict and full 
responsibilities for the prompt execution of the order, which, of course, 
does not burden them with any new responsibility. It cannot be that 
the President had changed his views as to the practicability and cor- 
rectness of the plan of the campaign for 1862, as laid out by Gen. Mc- 
Clellan, because the order does not indicate the least change in the 
said plan ; McClellan proceeded in its execution, and the President 
allows six weeks to pass by, before he publishes his orders, 



4 

and therefore, McClellan's plan is adhered to six weeks 
longer ; besides this, the President professes to adhere to 
it, wherever opportunity offers to express his opinion. It cannot 
be that the President thinks General McClellan less prompt, 
precise, or expeditious in the issuing of orders for a movement than 
himself; because order No. 2 proves in its first three specifications 
that an important part of the organization of the Army of the 
Potomac, (that is, its formation in army corps, upon which the efficacy 
of that army seems materially to depend, as well as the organization 
of a sufficient force for the security, and, in case of need, for the 
defence of the works around Washington,) had been entirely over- 
looked in War Order No. 1 ; while specification 4 shows that no 
operations of the Army of the Potomac as yet had been undertaken, 
and that consequently, as far as the last named army is concerned, 
said Order No. 1 had been issued prematurely, and therefore had better 
not been issued at all. It cannot possibly be that the President had 
differed with General McClellan as to the proper time when, the co- 
operative execution of the latter 's plan for the campaign ought to he 
commenced, and that the President, overruling McClellan's advice, 
had issued Order No. 1 ; because the long delay between the date of 
the order and its publication, would go far to show that the President 
had become convinced, that he had issued it long before the proper 
time. While War Orders No. 1 and 2 do not seem to throw any 
light upon the reason for which they were issued, the following 
letter, early in March published in and directed to the editor of the 
New York Tribune, by Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, may perhaps lead us 
in the proper direction : 

Sir : I cannot suffer undue merit to be ascribed to my official 
action. The glory of our recent victories belongs to the gallant 
officers that fought the battles. No share of it belongs to me. 

Much has recently been said of military combination and organiz- 
ing victory. I hear such phrases with apprehension. They com- 
menced in infidel France with the Italian campaign, and resulted in 
Waterloo. Who can organize victory 1 Who can combine the ele- 
ments of success on the battle field 1 We owe our recent victories to 
the spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to dash into battle and 
filled the hearts of our enemies with terror and dismay. The inspi- 
ration tli at conquered in battle was in the hearts of the soldiers and 
from on high ; and wherever there is the same inspiration there will 
be the same results. Patriotic spirit with resolute courage in officers 
and men is a military combination that never failed. 

We may well rejoice at the recent victories, for they teach us that 
battles are to be won now and by us in the same and only manner 



that they were ever won by any people or in any age since the days 
of Joshua, by boldly pursuing and striking the foe. What, under the 
blessing of Providence, I conceive to be the true organization of 
victory and military combination to end this war, was declared in a 
few words by General Grant's message to General Buckner : " I pro- 
pose to move immediately on your works." 
Yours truly, 

Edwin M. Stanton. 

Mr. Stanton was appointed Secretary of War about the middle of 
January. A controversy between the daily Press of the various 
political parties, as to what General had laid out the plan of the cam- 
paign, in the execution of which, Burnside in North Carolina, Du- 
pont in South Carolina, and Generals Grant, Buell and Thomas in 
Kentucky and in Tennessee, had gained advantages over the rebels ; 
in which controversy Mr. Edwin M. Stanton's name was also men- 
tioned as the originator of the said plan, at a time when he, a lawyer 
of high standing, was deeply engaged in his profession. In conse- 
quence of this allusion to his merit in the matter, the Secretary of 
War wrote the above letter to the editor in whose paper the allu- 
sion had been made. However much he may try to conceal it by 
infidel France, by the spirit of the Lord, by inspiration, by patriotic 
spirit, by Joshua, and by the blessing of Providence, it is never- 
theless clear, that Mr. Stanton's letter is nothing more nor less than 
one continuous slur, at military science and military leaders in gen- 
eral, on Napoleon Bonaparte, the most brilliant of them, and at Gen- 
eral McClellan in particular. He had made the plan for the cam- 
paign of 1862, and had repeatedly declared, that he could and would 
not order a general movement until all the necessary preliminary 
combinations would have been completed. Let us see how far Mr. 
Stanton's apprehension, with which he hears the phrase of military 
combination and organizing victory is well-founded, and how far his 
argument against those phrases is correct, by investigating events 
which had taken place only a short time before Mr. Stanton became 
Secretary of War, and which therefore ought to have been fresh in 
his memory, when he wrote the letter in question. At the battle of 
Belmont, November 1861, where General Ulysses S. Grant, (whose 
spirited message to General Buckner, the Secretary of War conceives 
to declare the true organization of victory and military combina- 
tion,) had supreme command, our soldiers rushed to battle and filled 
the hearts of the enemy with terror and dismay, but only till the 
superior military combinations of the rebel generals could be brought 
to bear upon General Grant's forces ; when for the very want of a 



'proper organization to secure victory, he had to retreat from the ene- 
my's camp, which at the first rush of his gallant men, he had 
actually occupied. Not having exercised strategical wisdom and 
experience to protect his line of retreat and his point of embarkation, 
he suffered fearfully, and re-embarked only a small portion of 
his terribly cut-up corps. General Grant, and General McCler- 
nand under him, tried to do his duty to the best of his under- 
standing at the time ; but he lacked experience, did not completely 
mature his operations before he commenced its • execution, and con- 
sequently failed and was badly defeated. His more perfect combi- 
nations at a later period proved how he profited by the lesson 
received at Belmont. Does Mr. Stanton mean to say that the spirit 
of the Lord who inspired General Grant's soldiers to rush into bat- 
tle at Belmont, made right about face, when they had entered the 
rebel camp, and then went and inspired the rebels to rush upon our 
brave fellows, and kill them and drive them into the river 1 or that 
General Grant and his brave troops had lost their patriotic spirit, 
and resolute courage when they had fought their way into the ene- 
my's camp 1 Or, that the inspiration from high, entered first the 
hearts of General Grant's army, and then slipt out and went into the 
hearts of the rebels 1 Or, that the spirit of the Lord, in consideration 
that both of them had been very naughty, directed that by the blessing 
of Providence, first the soldiers of the Confederate States, and then 
those of the United States of America, should receive a sound thrash- 
ing ? We know him to be too good a lawyer, if not Secretary of 
War, to believe in any such blasphemous nonsense. We for our part, 
firmly believe that the Almighty will bless our good cause and give 
us the victory in the end ; but we expect this gift precisely in the 
same manner as he gives us our daily bread ; that is after we have 
made all reasonable exertions to earn it ourselves. To win battles, 
we must understand to make military combinations to gain, and 
proper provisions to secure victory, otherwise we will see many repe- 
titions of the affair at Belmont, because the greatest captain of 
modern history, truly said : " In war, Providence is generally with the 
heaviest artillery." That is with artillery placed in the best position. 
Mr. Stanton forgets what he has read, or ought to have read, long 
before he became Secretary of War, in Greek and Latin, about the 
military combinations of Xenophon, of Xerxes, of Caesar, of Hanni- 
bal, and others ; when he says, these phrases commenced in infidel 
France, with the Italian campaign, and ended with Waterloo. 
Aside of this historical incorrectness, how does the history of the 



French wars, during the time fixed by the Secretary of War, justify 
him in hearing " these phrases with apprehension I" 

The corruption prevailing at the court of the elder Bourbons had, 
during about twenty years next previous to the time to which Mr. 
Stanton alludes, been more or less systematically infused into the 
aristocracy, and through them, into the French army, where the 
scions of nobility controlled the highest commissions ; (because a cor- 
rupt commander is sure to corrupt his entire command in an astonish- 
ingly short time). The study and practice of military science was 
subsequently more and more neglected, and the French army became, 
in the same proportion, despised by other military nations, in particu- 
lar by the German powers, who, thanks to the military genius of 
Frederick the Great, of Prussia, and to the lessons a-la-Belmont, in 
military combinations, and in perfect military organization which he 
had given to the various leading generals of Maria Theresa, of Austria. 
They possessed well officered and perfectly disciplined armies, which, 
at the instigation, and with the pecuniary aid of England, that had 
no organized army, they boldly sent to the French frontiers, with the 
intention of upholding or reinstating the rotten dynasty of the ban- 
ished royal family. The French armies were defeated almost in every 
engagement, and if it had not been for the deep-rooted hostility of the 
people in the provinces against the foreign invader, the armies of the 
coalition, as the German armies were called, would probably have 
penetrated to the capital of France. But the military genius of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, perfectly regulated and disciplined by long and 
profound study of the science of war, led the indignant and aroused 
masses, by the most sublime military combinations, across the Alps 
into that Italian campaign, — to which the honorable Secretary of 
War alludes in bis Tribune letter, — and on the 12th of April, 
1796, at Montenotte, gained his first victory over the Austrian 
field marshal D'Argenteau. Almost without a single serious re- 
verse, frequently against largely superior forces, led by commanders 
who had gained great fame as military leaders, (by keeping strictly 
in the beaten track laid out by those, who had become stationary, 
when Frederick the Great finished his lesson to them). Many there 
were then, as there are now, who, although Napoleon had in an al- 
most incredibly short time, driven the Austrian armies out of Italy, 
declared that nothing but good luck and the courage of the army had 
caused these victories, and that Napoleon's military strategy and 
tactics had nothing to do with it. How far this opinion had spread, 
may be well illustrated by the following historical facts : 



8 

Frederick "William III., king of Prussia, anticipating tlie possibility 
of collisions with the young emperor, early in 1805, called a council 
of state, for the purpose of deciding upon a policy to be adopted by 
Prussia in her future relations with France. Several of the oldest 
generals were in attendance ; the king, during the deliberation 
presented the view whether, in consideration of the unparalleled 
successes of the young chieftain against the best Austrian generals, 
which seemed to indicate an entirely new strategy on his part, it 
might not, after all, be the wisest policy to try to come to a peaceful 
understanding, or, perhaps, to an alliance with him ? When general 
Von Branchitsch, a man high in rank by long service, twisting his mous- 
tache, replied, " He had the honor of assuring his majesty, upon his 
honor, that in the Prussian army there were at least five or six such 
Napoleon Bonapartes." Upon this assurance, the king decided to 
side with Austria against Napoleon, which decision led to the battle 
of Jena, October 17, 1806, where the Prussian army was completely 
routed, before the commanders were fully aware that they had been 
attacked ; and to the peace of Tilsit, July 7th and 9th, 1807, where, 
by the grace of Napoleon, Frederick William III., retained a very 
small portion of his kingdom. These same military combinations, 
commencing in Italy in 1796, carried Napoleon and his French armies, 
in fifteen years, almost without any reverses, victorious from Italy 
through Holland, Belgium, and all the German sovereignties, without 
a single exception, to the western frontiers of the Russian empire, 
which they reached in October, 1812.* So that if military combina- 
tions are properly applied by the generals at the head of our armies, 
they will operate in a similar manner as they did in the case re- 
ferred to in Mr. Stanton's letter. The rebellion will, by their appli- 
cation, be crushed in a comparatively very short time. Mr. Stanton's 
reason for his apprehension, in hearing the phrase alluded to, are, 
therefore, not better than his explanation of the real causes to which 
we owe our recent victories. 

When, after having thus glanced at Mr. Stanton's Tribune letter, 
we read the President's War Order, No. 3, we find that this order : 



* It would exceed the limits of this essay to analyze the reasons which 
causeirthe destruction of Napoleon's army in Russia, his defeats in 1813 and 
1814, and his final overthrow, June 18, 1815. But it is certain, beyond all 
doubt, that neglect of complete combinations, and well organized victories on 
his side, and the adoption of Napoleon's principles to the most complete combi- 
nations and organizations by his opponents, were among the most effective 
agencies to bring about that result. 



1st. Relieves General McClellan of his command as"general-in-chief 
of the armies of the United States, and assigns him the command of 
the Department of the Potomac. 

2d. That it consolidates the commands under Generals Halleck, 
Hunter, and a portion of that under General Buell, in the Department 
of the Mississippi, under General Halleck. 

3d. That it relieves Generals Hunter and Buell of the commands 
of departments. 

4th. That it creates a new department, bound east by the depart- 
ment of the Potomac, and west by the department of the Mississippi, 
to be called the Mountain Department. 

5th. That it reinstates in to a command General John C. Fremont, 
who had been deprived of his command in October, 1861. 

6th. That it gives General Fremont command of the new Mountain 
Department. 

7th. That it orders the commanders of all the departments to report 
severally and direct to the Secretary of War, and consequently gives 
to Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, in addition to his office as Secretary of 
"War, that of de facto General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United 
States. 

Order No. 3, therefore, makes up in importance of its contents, 
what Orders No. 1 and No. 2 seem to be void of ; and it goes far to 
confirm our opinion that, because all these important changes in the 
organization and the command of the anny, were considered neces- 
sary for its efficiency against the enemy, the President's War Order 
No. 1, was issued decidedly before the proper time. But even the 
material changes in its organization, produced by order No. 3, do not 
seem to have given to the army the desired efficiency to crush the 
rebellion in the shortest possible time. Mr. Stanton's desire for 
executive employment seems still to have exceeded the enormous 
responsibilities already assumed; because, early in April, 1S62, the 
President directs two more military departments to be created, one of 
them to embrace that portion of Virginia and Maryland lying between 
the Mountain Department and the Blue Ridge, to be called the De- 
partment of the Shenandoah ; the other to be designated the Depart- 
ment of the Rappahanock, and to comprise the portion of Virginia east 
of the Blue Ridge, and "West of the Potomac and the Fredericksburg 
and Richmond Railroad, including the District of Columbia and the 
Patuxent. General McDowell is placed in command of the latter, 
and General Banks of the former Department. This operation for 
improving the efficiency of the army, it will be seen, deprives General 



10 

McCJellan of two array corps belonging to the Army of the Potomac, 
besides of a good slice of the Department of the Potomac ; and it 
adds to the corps under General McDowell, (already the largest of 
any in the Army of the Potomac, by the President's War Order No. 
2) the entire force, by that same order, placed under command of Brig. 
General James S. "Wadsworth, to protect the works around the City 
of Washington. 

All these changes in the army and reductions in the extent of Gen. 
McClellan's official province, it must be remembered, were made at a 
time when, under that general's chief command, a succession of Union 
victories had been achieved ; by Burnside, at Roanoke Island ; by 
Thomas and Schoepf, at Somerset and Bowling Green ; by Grant, 
at Fort Henry and Donelson ; and by Lander, in Western Virginia. 
If there could be a possibility for a lasting advantage to the insti- 
gator, we would be strongly tempted to the belief that all the above 
noted peculiar changes in the organization and command of the army, 
were made in strict compliance with the old adage divide et impera. 

Considering Mr. Stanton's Tribune letter, in which, as we have 
seen, without regard to historical truth, and in violation of sound com- 
mon sense, he tries to criticise and depreciate the strategical prin- 
ciples of the General-in-Chief, and consequently to undermine hiB 
influence with the army. Considering that by every one of these 
charges McClellan's command and official influence is reduced, 
while the official importance of Mr. Edwin M. Stanton is extended, 
and his direct control over the army increased, it does not seem likely, 
although Abraham Lincoln is to the country responsible for all these 
peculiar remodelings of the army, that there could be found in all 
New Pmgland a single Yankee who would not guess that Mr. Stan- 
ton is the real instigator of all these mischievous intermeddlings. This 
then is the manner in which the confidence and cordial support — 
by the President in his message, Dec. 3, '61, delared, hy fair impli- 
cation promised, and without which he. can not xoiih so full efficiency 
serve the country — were given to General McClellan by those highest 
in the country's offices. 

The organization of an army and the character of the commanders 
of army corps, constitute in time of war the most influential agencies 
for the co operation of the several corps and the success of the 
army. Let us inquire what military or other achievements have 
secured to the respective Generals placed in command of the va- 
rious army corps in Virginia, the distinction of being by the Pres- 
dtmt's War Order, entrusted with commissions, of so great influ- 



11 

ence in the speedy or slow termination of this expensive and terrible 
war, therefore of vast importance to the country, and of enormous 
responsibility to the Generals themselves 1 Commencing on the right 
wing, we find John C. Fremont, Major General United States Army, 
in command of the Mountain Department. General Fremont had 
served in the Army of tho United States prior to tho acquisition of 
the State of California ; he had explored the country west of the 
Mississippi, and had, at the head of a small command, penetrated as 
far as California ; this expedition, although not made against an ene- 
my, caused the gallant leader some trouble, placed him in a false 
position towards his superior officers, causod him to be court-martialled, 
and finally to resign his commission in the army. On the other hand 
it secured to him a landed estate of, according to general opinion, 
regal extent, and of immense value, known as the Mariposa Grant, 
the title ofwhich, although long disputed, has finally been adjudicated 
to the General. In a military point of view, this exploration was of 
no significance, certainly not as in any possible manner indicating 
qualifications for a command of large force.* 

Having attended to his California estates for several years, John C* 
Fremont returned to New York, and was nominated by his political 
friends for the office of President of the United States, and thereby 
became Avidely known all over the Union. He was not elocted, and 
was, four years later, when the Republican party again had to select a 
nominee, dropped by them to make room for Abraham Lincoln. The 
outbreak of the rebellion found Mr. Fremont in Europe ; he at once 
exerted his influence in favor of the North, secured and sent to Wash- 



* To show what can be done with a few men. We quoto from a 
pamphlet entitled " Fremont and McClellan, Yonkers, New York," 
where, at page 7, the military achievements of General Fremont, are 
thus summed up : " Fremont with twenty-five men, had crossed tho 
great mountains and deserts of America, amid untold hardships, yet 
with signal success ; subsisting his horses on the bark of trees, and 
his men upon the flesh of horses, and had, with this force, recruited 
by a few Americans resident in California, while still unaware of the 
existence of war with Mexico, hoisted the Bear Flag of California in- 
dependance, prevented the British fleet from seizing this province, 
driven out tho Mexican forces, and when he learned of the existence 
of our war with Mexico, exchanged the Bear Flag for the Stars and 
Stripes ; thus giving to his country, as a province, California, the 
land whose rivers ran over glistening 6ands of gold. As a soldier, it 
was his good fortune to win to his country a province! whose untold 
wealth repaid the cost incurred by Taylor and Scott in conquering 
territory to be afterwards surrendered." 



12 

ington a splendid battery of rifled cannon, with large quantities of 
other arms, and returned with his family to his native land. Before 
his arrival, the President appointed him Major General of the United 
States Army, a rank at that time held only by General McClellan. 
When General Fremont reached Washington, he was placed in com- 
mand of the Department of the West, headquarters St. Louis, and 
entered upon his duties in the early part of August, 1861. 

Before the troops under General Fremont had made a movement 
en masse,* Colonel Blair of Missouri, a leader of the so-called Repub- 
lican party, presented serious charges against General Fremont — was 
put under and kept in arrest by the General for some time, and was 
then restored to his command without any sort of trial, and without 
having retracted any of his charges. The importance thereof caused 
General Thomas, Adjutant General of the army of the United 
States under General Scott, to be sent to the headquarters of General 
Fremont for the purpose of investigating the charges preferred by 
Colonel Blair. The report of General Thomas to the Commander-in- 
Chief of our armies, bore out Colonel Blair's charges. President 
Lincoln, deprived General Fremont of his command without trial or 
court-martial, October 20th, 186 l.t To military men it was and is to 
this day a matter of surprise and deep regret that General Fremont 
lacked, to say the least, the respect due to the army of the United 
States,wherein he holds a high commission, the proper self-respect and 
esprit du corps, to demand a court-martial. 

The charges of Colonel Blair and those of General Thomas had 
never been retracted. General Fremont had not sought an opportu- 
nity to prove them to be false. The staff officers of General Fremont 
were almost all dismissed from the army, some of them having in- 
sisted upon trial by court-martial, have not been tried yet. General 
Thomas is still Adjutant General of the army ; but four months after 
he has been deprived of his command, War Order No. 3 places Gen- 
eral John C. Fremont in command of anew department. 

Measures like this must of necessity operate detrimentally upon the 
morale, the esprit du corps, the discipline, and consequently upon the 

* The two brilliant affairs under General Franz Sigel at Carthage and at 
Rolla, although they demonstrated the military eminence of that gallant sol- 
dier, were participated in only by a very insignificant and detached force. 

f The statement on page 18 previously mentioned of the Crisis pamphlet, 
that McClellan is responsible for the removal of Fremont from his command 
is untrue, because General McClellan did not become General-in-Chief of the 
Army until November, 1861. 



13 

efficiency of the army. The conviction thereof in Europe is so com- 
plete that in the present century, in no country except in Turkey, the 
government would appoint a General to a command whose fair fame 
was in the least tarnished hy any unrepudiated charges. No, Gen- 
eral, if so appointed, would accept a command before he had, by the 
verdict of a court-martial, been fully and honorably cleared of any 
suspicion of a conduct unbecoming an officer ; because every officer is 
fully aware that accepting a command without having previously de- 
manded and obtained opportunity to reestablish his fair fame, he 
would make himself a target for every officer in his command. 

Immediately after the last Italian war, in which the new strategy 
and tactics of Louis Napoleon, for the first time astonished the mil- 
itary world, Lieutenant General von Bonin, the Secretary of War to 
the King of Prussia, presented to the government a plan for the re- 
organization of the Prussian army ; the King, after hearing Bonin's 
explanations of his plan, in a full Cabinet Council, approved of it, 
and ordered it to be prepared in form of a bill, to be presented for 
the approbation of Congress. While General von Bonin was yet en- 
gaged in the execution of this order, the King sent for him, and in 
a private interview, told him he had, on reflection, ordered one of his 
aids to introduce some merely formal changes in von Bonin's original 
plan, which he wished him to examine and to adopt in the bill he was 
preparing. General von Bonin read the amendments and informed 
his Majesty that he would not in the least object to any merely for- 
mal alterations in his original plan, as long as the fundamental prin- 
ciple thereof was adhered to ; that the amendment handed to him, 
by the King, entirely changed the principle upon which his own plan 
had been based, and that consequently he had to regret the necessity 
that prevented him to adopt the amendment in his own bill. The 
King replied that he would consider the matter. 

The following day General von Bonin received two letters from the 
King ; the first deprived him of the office of Secretary of War, for diso- 
bedience to the orders of the King ; the second appointed him Comman- 
der-in-Chief of the eighth army corps, on the French frontier, the most 
important military command in the army. General von Bonin at once 
replied, that an officer who had been so unfortunate as to deserve to be 
deprived of his command for disobedience was forever unworthy to 
hold a command in the Prussian army ; he therefore respectfully ten- 
dered his resignation as an officer of the army, to take effect immedi- 
ately. Congress rejected the amended plan for the army reorganiza- 
tion, and at the present moment this same question has caused the 
second ministerial crisis in Berlin. 



14 

Our own army, we very much fear, will never be what the country 
has a right to expect it to be, before our officers understand to act upon 
principles similar to those expressed by Lieutenant-General van Bonin. 
In Turkey this principle has been neglected, in consequence of the 
universal corruption with which that beautiful country is cursed. Offi- 
cers charged with malfeasance were deprived of a command to-day, 
and trusted with another one a few days afterwards ; the consequence 
was that, Marshal Diebitch, the Russian commander-in-chief, in 
1829, found that the commander of almost every fortress 
(however impregnable by nature and artificial fortifications), had 
his fixed price for which he surrendered ; so that the Russian 
army reached Adrianople, a short distance from Constantinople, before 
the Sultan considered it possible that the siege of the first frontier for- 
tress could have fairly been commenced. The Turkish High-Admiral 
when sent with a large fleet against the rebellious Pacha of Egypt, took 
the entire fleet in to the Egyptian port and surrendered it to the rebel. 
Since that time the esprit du corps in the army of the Sultan has been 
revived and encouraged in every possible manner ; corruption has been 
punished whenever detected, and the result of this change of sentiment 
has been demonstrated in the many brilliant affairs performed by the 
army as well as the navy of the Sultan during the last Crimean war. 
Omar Pasha has established a fair reputation for the army, and the 
brilliant fight of a single Turkish vessel against five Russian steamers 
in the disgraceful affair of Sinope, have gained respect for the " sick 
man's" navy. 

General N. P. Banks, the commander of the Department of the Shen- 
andoah, on the left of General Fremont's department, had distinguish- 
ed himself as Speaker of the House of Representatives, as Governor 
of Massachusetts, where he caused a complete reorganization of the 
militia, which he militarised so far, that at the outbreak of the re- 
bellion, Colonel Butler's Massachusetts regiment was the first in the 
country on its march to Washington. Declining the re-nomination for 
Governor, General Banks found in the management of an extensive 
Railroad system a new field for the display and development of his 
executive talents. This so much the better qualified him, at the out- 
break of the rebellion, to accept a command of a Division in the army 
of the Potomac. By earnest study, by strict military conduct, by 
the rapid promotion of the efficiency of his men, by the well-conceived 
disposition of his forces, to guard the line of the upper Potomac, and 
by his successful occupation of Harper's Ferry, he had proved his 
adaptedness for a military command on a larger scale, and had receiv- 



15 

ed the appointment as Major-General of Volunteers. On the left of 
General Banks' department joined the department of the Rappahan- 
nock, under Major-General I. McDowell. 

General McDowell at the commencement of the rebellion held a 
commission as Major in the United States army, was very soon called 
to "Washington, promoted to a Brigadier-Generalship, and entrusted 
with the chief command of an army in and around Washington in 
June, 1861. This army went under his command into what is known 
as the first battle of Bull Run ; General McDowell came out of it and 
made the following official report : 

Headquarters, Department North-Eastern Virginia, ) 
Arlington, Va., August 4, 1861. J 
Lieutenant-Colonel E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant-General, 
Headquarters of the Army, Washington, D. C. 

Colonel — I have the honor to submit the following report of the 
battle of the 21st of July, near Manassas, Virginia. It has been 
delayed till this time from the inability of the subordinate command- 
ers to get earlier a true account of the state of their commands. 

The divisions were ordered to march at half-past two o'clock A.M., 
so as to arrive on the ground early in the day, and thus avoid the 
heat which is to be expected at this season. There was delay in the 
first division getting out of its camp on the road, and the other 
divisions were in consequence between two and three hours behind 
the time appointed — a great misfortune, as events turned out. 

Inasmuch as General McDowell had never before held a command, 
a military reading of his report will afford the fairest basis for an opinion 
regarding his qualification and merits as a commander of an army. 

The report shows everywhere the General's endeavor to report the 
facts as they actually occurred, and to neither conceal nor to magnify 
anything. 

After having given a description of the proceedings during the 21st 
day of July which, (after only a portion of his army had seen the en- 
emy, or had been engaged, he says,) resulted in a hasty retreat, acom- 
plete rout, and finally in an irresistable panic ; carrying everything 
in one promiscuous mass of men and beast before it, and some of the 
disorganised troops by way of Washington as far as New York ; and 
after having claimed credit for distinguished conduct for a great many 
officers of the various corps and of his staff, he proceeds : 

As my position may warrant, even if it does not call for some 
explanation of the causes, as far as they can be seen, which led to 
the results herein stated, I trust it may not be out of place if I refer 
in a few words to the immediate antecedents of the battle. When I 



16 

submitted to the General-in-Chief, in compliance with his verbal 
instructions, the plan of operations and estimate of force required, 
the time I was to proceed to carry it into effect was fixed for the 8th 
July, Monday. Every facility possible was given me by the Gene- 
ral-in-Chief and heads of the administrative departments in making 
the necessary preparations. But the regiments, owing, I was told, to 
want of transportation, came over slowly. Many of them did not 
come across till eight or nine days after the time fixed upon, and 
went forward without my even seeing them, and without having been 
together before in a brigade. The sending reinforcements to General 
Patterson, by drawing off the wagons, was a further and unavoidable 
cause of delay. Notwithstanding the herculean efforts of the 
Quartermaster General, and his favoring me in every way, the 
wagons for ammunition, subsistence, &c, and the horses for the 
trains and the artillery, did not all arrive for more than a week after the 
time appointed to move. I was not even prepared as late as the 15th 
ultimo, and the desire I should move became great, and it was wished 
I should not, if possible, delay longer than Tuesday, the 16th ultimo, 
When I did set out, Q f r ihe 16th, I was still deficient in wagons for 
subsistence. But I went forward, trusting to their being procured in 
time to follow me. The trains thus hurriedly gathered together, 
with horses, wagons, drivers, and wagon managers, all new and 
unused to each other, moved with difficulty aud disorder, and was the 
cause of a day's delay in getting the provisions forward, making it 
necessary to make on Sunday the attack we should have made on 
Saturday. I could not, with every exertion, get forward with the 
troops earlier than we did. I wished to go to Centreville the second 
day, which would have taken us there on the 17th, and enabled us, 
so far as th n y were concerned, to go into action on the 19th, instead 
of the 21st, but when I went forward from Fairfax Court House 
beyond Germantown, to urge them forward, I was told it was impos- 
sible for the men to march further. They had only come from Vienna, 
about six miles, and it was not more than six and a half miles further 
to Centreville — in all a march of twelve and a half miles ; but the 
men were foot-weary, not so much, I was told, by the distance 
marched, as by the time they had been on foot, caused by the 
obstructions in the road, and the slow pace we had to move to avoid 
ambuscades. The men were, moreover, unaccustomed to marching, 
their bodies not in condition for that kind of work, and not used to 
carrying even the load of light marching order. We crossed Bull 
Run with about 18,000 men of all arms, the fifth division (Miles and 
Bichardson's brigade) on the left, at Blackburn's Ford to Centreville, 
and Schenck's brigade, of Tyler's division, on the left of the road, 
near the stone bridge, not participating in the main action. The 
numbers opposed to us have been variously estimated. I may safely 
say, and avoid even the appearance of exaggeration, that the enemy 
brought up all he could which were not kept engaged elsewhere. 
He had notice of our coming on the 17th, and had from that time 
until the 21st to bring up whatever he had. It is known that in 
estimating the force to go against Manassas, I engaged not to have 



17 

to do with, the enemy's forces under Johnson, then kept in check in 
the valley hy Major General Patterson, or those kept engaged hy 
Major General Butler, and I know every offort was made by the 
General-in-Chief that this should be done, and that even if Johnson 
joined Beauregard, it would not be because he could be followed by 
General Patterson, but from causes not necessary for me to refer to, 
if I knew them at all. This was not done, and the enemy was free 
to assemble from every direction in numbers only limited by the 
amount of this railroad rolling stock and his supply of provisions. 
To the forces, therefore, we drove in from Fairfax Court House, 
Fairfax Station, Germantown, and Centreville, and those under 
Beauregard at Manassas, must be added those under Johnston from 
Winchester, and those brought up by Davis from Richmond and 
other places at the South, to which is to be added the levy en masse 
ordered by the Richmond authorities, which was ordered to assemble 
at Manassas. What all this amounted to I cannot say — certainly 
much more than we attacked them with. I could not, as I have said 
more early, push on faster, nor could I delay. A large and the best 
part of my forces were three months' volunteers, whose term of 
service was about to expire, but who were sent forward as having 
long enough to serve for the purpose of the exhibition. On the eve 
of the battle, the Fourth Pennsylvania regiment of volunteers and 
the battery of volunteer artillery of the New York Eighth militia, 
whose term of service expired, insisted on their discharge. I wrote 
to the regiment, expressing a request for them to remain a short time, 
and the Hon. Secretary of War, who was at the time on the ground, 
tried to induce the battery to remain at least five days. Bnt in vain. 
They insisted on their discharge that night. It was granted, and 
the next morning, when the army moved forward into ^ttle, these 
troops moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon. In 
the next few days, day by day, I should have "lost ten thousand of 
the best armed, drilled, officered, and disciplined troops in the army. 
In other words, every day which added to the strength of the enemy 
made us weaker. In conclusion, I desire to say, in reference to the 
events of the 21st ult., that the general order for the battle to which 
I referred was, with slight modifications, literally conformed to ; that 
the corps were brought over Bull Run in the manner proposed, and 
put into action as before arranged, and that up to late in the after- 
noon every movement ordered was carrying us successfully to the 
object we had proposed before starting — that of getting to the rail- 
road leading from Manassas to the valley of Virginia, and going on 
it far enough to break up and destroy the communication and inter- 
viens between the forces under Beauregard and those under Johnston. 
And could we have fought a day or a few hours sooner, there is 
everything to show how we could have continued successful, even 
against the odds with which we contended. I have the honor to be, 
very respectfully, your most obedient servant, 

IRWIN McDOWELI, 
Brigadier-General Commanding. 



18 

We see that, twelve days before the 21st of August, General Mc- 
Dowell intended to move ; that, as he says, notwithstanding the 
greatest efforts of, and all possible facilities given him by the com- 
mander-in-chief, and the heads of the departments, the regiments did 
not come in till eight or nine days later. What a horrible state 
must the organization of the army have been in, if the com- 
bined exertions of all these high personages, to acknowledge which 
the general twice takes occasion, could not provide better results 
than this utter failure in everything ] Who was to blame that the regi- 
ments went forward without the general having seen them ; and 
without having been together before in a brigade 1 Certainly no- 
body but General McDowell himself. The regiments could not 
come to look for or to see the general, but it was his busi- 
ness and his most important duty to go and see them, to get ac- 
quainted with them, and make himself known to them ; to order them 
to be brigaded ; to designate the several'regiments for every brigade, 
and to order what brigade drill they should become accustomed to. 
If he was not even prepared on the fifteenth of May to move, what 
had he, as a soldier, to do with a desire and a wish that he should not 
delay beyond the sixteenth 1 And how. could he think of ever justifying 
himself for having moved against an enemy, before being in every 
respect completely prepared and ready ? As a general, responsible 
for the lives and safety of every man in his command, and as a soldier, 
he has to receive and to give orders ; with desires and wishes he has 
nothing whatever to do ; but in particular has he not to jeopardise 
the lives of the men entrusted to him. Even, when on the 17th day 
of July, he joined his troops on the march, and found them foot-sore 
and unprepared for a campaign, he did not see the folly, nay crime, 
he was committing, in seeking an engagement with an enemy, without 
the most absolute necessity. The reasons given why he could not 
delay any longer, are the most powerful reasons that should have in- 
duced him not to seek an engagement at all. If, as he says, 
by the expiration of the term of service of a large proportion of his 
men, his army would day by day have been reduced and become 
weaker ; he, and every military man, ought to have foreseen that a 
defeat in battle (and he had, according to his own statement of facts, 
nothing else to expect), would deprive him and the country of the 
entire army, and place the capitol and the Government at the mercy 
of the enemy. Still more unwarrantable appears the forward move- 
ment in the face, first of the distinct declaration of Colonel Burnside, 
of Ehode Island, that in the presence of senator Wilson, of Massa- 



19 

chusetts, be told General McDowell, two days before tbe battle, tbat 
the army was not prepared, and ought not to move forward to an en- 
gagement ; to wbicb McDowell replied, that if he could not Jight 
now, he could not Jight in six months, because bis best men would go _ 
home ; wben Burnside said, better figbt not at all tban fight witb 
bis army in its present condition, wbicb remark produced on senator 
Wilson's face an expression indicating tbat be tbougbt tbe colonel to 
be a coward ; second, in consideration of tbe small and insigni- 
ficant purpose for wbicb tbe existence of tbe tben entire army of tbe 
country was put in jeopardy, to wit, to break up by destruction of the 
railroad, the communication between two corps of the enemy. For 
tbe last six weeks, tbese bad botb been kept in cbeck and harmless, by 
tbe presence of tbe United States troops, respectively, under General 
Patterson, on tbe upper Potomac, and near Wasbington,under McDow- 
ell, and could have been kept in cbeck a great while longer. This, Gen- 
eral McDowell himself, designates the object of the movement, botb at 
tbe commencement and towards tbe end of his report. If the entire 
army had followed the example of the fourth Pennsylvania volun- 
teers, and of the artillery of the eighth New York militia, the disgrace 
of July 21st, would probably have been avoided. 

Finding General McDowell entirely wanting in the fundamental 
principles of military foresight, and organizing qualities, as well as in 
a due consideration of his responsibilities and duties as a commanding 
general, violating the very rudiments of strategy, to wit, [that an offi- 
cer, when attacked, has to defend himself under all circumstances, 
and at all hazards, while he who makes an attack, before he is com- 
pletely and in every particular fully prepared, acts tbe part of a fool) ; 
we think we are justified in the expectation that, taking so enormous 
responsibilities upon himself, in making a forward movement with so 
badly prepared an army, the general will exercise the utmost care in 
giving all tbe necessary orders and instructions, in so precise and per- 
fect a manner that, at least, many of tbe organic deficiencies of 
bis army may thereby be neutralized. We deeply regret tbat justice 
to tbe various officers who held command under General McDowall, 
and to their brave soldiers, compel us to say, that tbe unmilitary orders 
issued by him, have as much if not more to do witb the disastrous 
result of the affair of Bull Run, than the want of proper organization, 
drill and preparation of the army before it left Washington. A com- 
manding General when about to go into a battle of his own selection, 
at his own time and on his own battle field, has nothing to do witb 
his troops on the march towards tbe battle field; he needs the troops 



20 

on the battle field, where he assumes command in person over 
the entire army, while up to that moment the command and the 
responsibilities are with the commanders of the various corps. The 
order of a Commanding General, directing the various corps of his 
army to move to a certain position, by him designated to each of 
them respectively, in or near the battle field, ought therefore dis- 
tinctly to state the time when each corps shall reach its respective 
position. This time alone can and ought to he fixed by the Com- 
anding ' General. It has to be left to the better judgement of the 
commanders of the various corps, to their intimate knowledge of 
the character and physique of their troops, of the distance to be 
marched, of the condition of the roads, and so forth ; to determine 
when they have to commence the march for their position on the 
field, to reach it at the time -fixed by the Commanding General. 
This rule General McDowell has violated in his order to the Com- 
manders of Divisions, in which, instead of fixing the time when 
the various divisions were respectively to reach the positions by 
him designated to them, he says : the divisions were ordered to 
march at half-past two o'clock, A. M., so as to arrive on the ground 
early in the day and thus avoid the heat. This order leaves the 
the time when he wants the troops in their position completely 
undecided, and takes the responsibilities, the blame for delay in 
stopping to drink, and all the disorganizing consequences, to which 
he in his report refers, from the shoulders of the Division Commanders 
and puts it upon those of General McDowell, who had no right to say 
in his report that " the divisions were between two and three hours 
behind the time appointed.'" He had, according to his own state- 
ments, not appointed any time at all when they tvere to be in position. 
These two to three hours behind time, tell fearfully against the Gen- 
eral. The unmilitary order for all the divisions to commence the 
march at the same time, of necessity caused collision and confusion 
among the various divisions at the outset ; exposed the troops on the 
march to the very heat which was to be avoided, and consequently 
delayed the commencement, and the termination of the engagement, 
about three hours beyond the time, when, under a competent Gen- 
eral it would have taken place ; if he ever had placed himself, under 
the existing circumstances, in the undesirable position of fighting a 
battle. These three hours are the very identical few hours, which 
in General McDowell's own opinion, and according to his state- 
ment, in the finishing sentence of his report, would have secured 
success to the Union army, and consequently would have prevented 



21 

its destruction It may not be superfluous here to note the fact, that 
according to General McDowell's report, the frequently talked of 
rebel fortifications at and near Manassas, had never been reached 
by any portion of the Union army, and therefore remained as much 
terra incognita after the 21st day of July, 1861, as they had been up 
to that date. 

When the alarm, confusion and consternation caused by the affair 
at Bull Run had to some extent subsided, and when General Mc- 
Clellan commenced the organization of a new army, General Mc- 
Dowell was put in command of a division of the army on the Po- 
tomac, whence he was promoted to the command of a corps d'armee 
and a Major-General. 

Next to the Department of the Rappahannock, and partly belonging 
thereto, we come to the District of Columbia, over which Brigadier- 
General James S. Wadsworth was appointed military Governor. The 
protection, and, in case of emergency, the defence of the City of Wash- 
ington, with all the important government records and treasure, had 
been perfected by the construction of some thirty earth works, of 
more or less strength, mounting in the aggregate a very impos- 
ing number of guns, of the heaviest calibre and most improved 
pattern, and garrisoned by quite a respectable army, composed 
of infantry, cavalry and mostly of artillery. The circumstance that 
the regular population of the District was not only considerably 
increased by the war, that the floating population consists, to a 
very great extent, in commands and detachments from almost all the 
regiments that compose the army of the United States, that all 
these troops, during their sojourn in Washington, are to a greater or 
smaller extent, placed under the control of the military Governor, 
makes the office of the last named functionary one of great import- 
ance. It can be properly held only by a person of military experi- 
ence, great tact, sense of justice, and superior executive talent. 

Brigadier-General Wadsworth had joined the army under the Presi- 
dent's first call for volunteers, with one of the militia regiments of the 
State of New York ; he was promoted a Major, and, as General Mc- 
Dowell says in his report of Bull Run, did that General the honor to 
be one of his personal staff. When the despair and consternation 
caused by the Bull Run affair gradually began to give way to a feeling 
of greater security, and more cheerful expectations, produced by the 
vigorous manner in which the reorganization of the totally demoralised 
army by General McClellan was carried on, those persons more or less 
engaged in Bull Run gradually became visible again in the public places 



22 

in and around "Washington ; many of them considering it unpardonahle 
in General McClellan to insist upon it that the army should he complete- 
ly organised, armed, equipped, officered and drilled, as well as provided 
with all the necessary auxiliaries ; that en fine it should he as different 
from the so-called army that left Washington to go to Bull's Run as 
black is from white, before he would lead it against an enemy, (who in 
addition to the self-reliance and confidence gained by his success at 
Bull's Run, had erected and manned at and around Manassas Junction 
numerous fortifications which at the time of the Bull Run disaster were 
already so formidable that not one man of McDowell's army approached 
them, and which since that fatal day had been continually extended 
and strengthened). Among those disapproving of General McClellan's 
strategy General Wadsworth was prominent, and he is said to have 
publicly declared that McClellan's army was strong enough at any 
time to march against and over the rebel fortifications at Manassas 
whenever that General would say the word forward, and that because 
McClellan did not go and attack these fortifications he had become his 
declared enemy. 

What opportunities General Wadsworth has had, to form a correct 
opinion of the strength required by an army to take and march over 
the Manassas fortifications we do not know. It is well known that 
neither the latter gentleman nor any other officer of our army had ever 
seen these fortifications, neither before, at, nor since Bull Run 
had afforded to General Wadsworth only an opportunity to see the 
mismanagement, weakness, repuke and panic of an army, but not 
its strength or its application and success. He had never seen 
any other army make a successful advance against fortifications 
of any kind It is the opinion universally expressed in Washing- 
ton that, (without considering for a moment whether he was a tall a 
competent judge in military affairs, without recollecting that to speak 
disrespectfully and with contempt of a superior officer is under the articles 
of war a serious offence, deserving punishment, and that, as general-in- 
chief of the army, General McClellan was the superior of Brigadier- 
General Wadsworth) the latter was among the loudest who accused 
General McClellan of inactivity, of want of talent, of dash and of mil- 
itary qualification in general, and who used all his influence for the 
purpose of opposing and crippling the execution of his plans for the 
campaign of 1862. However self-confident he may have been as to 
his superior judgment in military affairs regarding offensive move- 
ments, it seems that the confidence of the President and Secretary of 
War in his talents and qualification to direct the defense of a place 



23 

surrounded by fortifications, even at that early part of the campaign, 
was by no means equal to his own, because his military department 
was embodied in the Department of the Rappahannock at the very first 
formation thereof, and the military command vested in General Mc- 
Dowell. The left wing of the army was occupied by the army of the 
Potomac, leaning with the left on the bank of that river. Major-Gen- 
eral George B. McClellan had command of this army, which he himself 
had organised and in every respect prepared and militarised from its 
first formation. 

It has been so frequently and in so many places, and by so many 
persons of all political parties, publicly stated — it has never been 
contradicted, and it therefore can not be doubted — that according to 
McClellan's plan for the campaign of 1862, the army of the Potomac 
as well, as the grand army in the West under General Halleck, wei-e 
not to commence their simultaneous general movements against the 
rebel forces before the month of April, because it was impossible for 
the armies to be in every respect completely prepared for the great 
work laid out for them. That the President, who was completely fa- 
miliar with McClellan's plan, had fully approved of and sanctioned it ; 
had in the early spring of the year, lost the strength of will to rely 
upon his own better judgment, and yielding to the opinions of 
others, had pressed McClellan to deviate from his well-considered 
plans. The latter (convinced of the disastrous consequences 
which a yielding against his own well matured conviction would 
carry with it, and remembering the advice given him by his 
veteran predecessor, Winfield Scott, in their parting interview 
at the railroad depot at "Washington, "never to allow himself to be in- 
fluenced by the opinion of others, against his own deliberate judg- 
ment" had resisted all the force brought to bear on him, and had re- 
fused to order a premature forward movement. That in consequence 
thereof, McClellan was deprived of the command-in-chief of the army, 
left in command of the army of the Potomac only ; and the new inde- 
pendent Departments were created. McClellan, after having ex- 
plained and demonstrated all the necessary evil consequences of a 
forward movement, before the time fixed upon by him ; a good sol- 
dier as he is, had, when he ceased to be General-in-chief, punctually 
executed the orders received from the Commander-in-Chief, advanced 
with the army of the Potomac from Arlington Heights towards Cen- 
treville, Manassas and Warrenton, and^ directed McDowell's corps 
towards Fredericksburg. He then, with his entire army, except 
McDowell's corps of four divisions, returned to Alexandria and em- 



24 

barked thence for Fortress Monroe and the Peninsula. From April 
until August, 1862, his army was entirely isolated from the armies of 
the other Departments in Virginia. 

For the complete military history and review of the operations of 
the army of the Potomac on the Peninsula, we refer our readers to a 
pamphlet published by H. Dexter, 113 Nassau street, New- York, en- 
titled " Major General George B. McClellan, from August 1861 to 
August 1862," which gives a lucid history of the services General 
McClellan has rendered to the country. 

Having examined the positions of the different corps of the army in 
Virginia, designated to them by the President's War Orders, having 
despatched the army of the Potomac under McClellan to the Penin- 
sula, and having become acquainted with the commanding generals of 
the various corps, we will now try to find out what military results 
were to be obtained by the various corps, and how far the commanding 
generals succeeded in achieving ^hat they were expected to perform. 

The main object of the campaign of 1862 in Virginia was to get 
possession of Richmond ; the part, in the execution of this plan, as- 
signed to Generals McDowell, Banks and Fremont, was to gain pos- 
session of the Rappahannock river from the Potomac to Fredericks- 
burg ; to drive the small rebel force under General Jackson still in 
the Shenandoah valley, across the Shanandoah, then take possession 
of Gordonville thereby (destroying the line of communication between 
Richmond and the Virginia Central Railroad), to secure the double facil- 
ities of the Orange and Alexandria and the Richmond and Freder- 
icksburg Railroads for our army supplies of every description, in the 
advance of a corps of our forces by way of Hanover Court House, to 
Richmond. 

In the execution of this plan General McDowell's corps had been 
left near Warrenton Junction, whence he moved toward Fredericks- 
burg, while at the same time a few gunboats of the Potomac flotilla 
passed up the Rappahannock and destroyed a rebel battery near 
Lowry's Point. A few days later, General McDowell's corps, with- 
out meeting any rebel force strong enough to offer resistance to his 
advance, reached Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, on the 18th of 
April, after the small rebel force had succeeded in destroying the 
bridge across the river — not, however, with the intention of disputing 
the passage of the river, but merely to retard the forward movement 
of the union army, which they of course expected to be intended, be- 
cause the municipal authorities of Fredericksburg were not prevented 
from offering to surrender the city upon a guarantee of protection to 



25 

private property, which condition was granted by General Huger, the 
commander of the forces that first reached the place. 

General Banks, as soon as he had been vested with the command 
of the Department of the Shanandoah, went to work to clear it from 
the enemy. He advanced his troops to the vicinity of Winchester, 
where, on the 22d day of March, General Shields' division brought 
on an engagement with the forces under General Jackson, in which 
General Shields was wounded and put hors du combat, by almost the 
first shell fired against our troops. General Banks, who had been on 
his way to Washington where he had been summoned, reached the 
battle-field in time to resume command, and in an engagement of two 
days, in which the troops of General Jackson were to great advan- 
tage placed behind stone fences, whence our army had to drive them 
at the point of the bayonet, he compelled the rebels to retreat with a 
considerable loss in killed, wounded and artillery, pursued by the 
Union army. The position of his troops, under protection of the stone 
fences, won General Jackson the surname Stonewall, by which, since 
that time, he has been generally designated. The battle at Winches- 
ter was soon followed by one at Strasburg, where Jackson had made 
a stand ; but he had to retreat from here, driven as at Winchester, at 
the point of the bayonet. He made another stand at Woodstock, but 
had again to retreat before the cold steel of the Union army. Al- 
though he had been considerably reinforced, and although he destroyed 
all the bridges behind him, and thereby considerably increased the 
difficulties General Banks had to encounter in his pursuit, neverthe- 
less he had to retreat from Mt. Jackson, from New-Market, and finally 
from Harrisonburg, after having made a stand, and having been forced 
in a general engagement of all his forces, to yield every one of these 
positions to the army under General Banks. From Harrisonburg he 
retreated toward Staunton, crossed the Shenandoah and destroyed 
the bridge ; thus he prevented General Banks from pursuing him im- 
mediately, and he even kept him for a while in ignorance of the direction 
in which he had withdrawn, leaving the impression on his mind that 
the rebel army had moved towards Gordonsville. The several bat- 
tles and engagements above mentioned, and the march from Winchester 
to Harrisonburg had occupied a period of about six weeks ; and after 
General Banks' corps had driven Jackson from Harrisonburg, and 
after the latter had crossed the river and destroyed the bridge behind 
him, there commenced a period of inactivity in General Banks' army 
which surprised his numerous friends and admirers at the time, but 
which was explained by subsequent events. 



26 

The troops forming the command of Major General John C. Fre- 
mont, of the mountain Department, had to be concentrated from vari- 
ous parts of the country. The staff of the Commanding General had 
to be organized, and the machinery for the management, subsistance 
and transportation of a corps d'armee had to be put in proper work- 
ing order before the corps could be in condition to take the field with 
any prospect of success. All these causes operated to the result that 
while General Banks' corps was gaining victory after victory, the 
country did not hear of any movements in the mountain department. 

General McDowell, after having occupied Fredericksburg, where 
he found a considerable amount of grain and forage stored by the 
enemy, had the bridges across the river rebuilt, and put his pickets 
just beyond the city, bo as to be secure against a surprise. At the 
same time we find him a frequent passenger on the railroad, travel- 
ling from Fredericksburg to Washington and back again. Thus 
time passed on, till General Stonewall Jackson, in retreating before 
Gen. Banks, crosses the Shenandoah, and leaves that General in doubt 
as to his exact position. General Banks, who was always with his 
army and in the saddle, reported to the Secretary of War that Jack- 
son was very near his front, contemplating an attack. General 
McDowell, who had to divide his time between Fredericksburg and 
Washington, reported at the 6ame time that he had heard that Jack- 
son was in his front, and he asked for reinforcements, to feel perfectly 
secure in his position, although he had already a by far larger 
force than Gen. Banks, although he had not lost anything in battles 
which he had not fought, while Banks' corps was considerably reduc- 
ed by losses in the various battles above mentioned. The Secretary 
of War, was by these contradictory reports, placed in a position 
actually to direct the movements of armies before the enemy, to 
become responsible for the success or defeat of the cause of the 
Union, on the field in question, and for the lives of thousands of 
brave men. They joined the army in the reasonable expectation of 
being put under command of experienced military men, but not to be 
sacrificed by the assumption of the control of armies by a completely 
unqualified person, a position really embarrassing to a man without 
military knowledge or experience. It can not surprise anybody that 
Mr. Stanton's order was exactly the reverse from what it ought to 
have been. He ordered Gen. Banks, 1st, to send 15,000 men, under 
Gen. Shields, to reinforce Gen. McDowell, at Fredericksburg ; and 
2d, with the rest of his troops, 4000 infantry, 1500 cavalry, ten Par- 
rot guns and six smooth bores, to fall back upon Strasburg. In com- 



27 

pliance with this order, Gen. Shields had passed safely through Ma- 
nassas Gap, and joined McDowell ; hut Col. Kearney, with a Maryland 
regiment, following over the same route, was intercepted near Front 
Royal, about ten miles east of Strasbnrg, by Jackson's troops, who 
had followed in pursuit, the moment he saw tbe retrogade movement 
of Gen. Banks, and were badly cut to pieces. Jackson then attacked 
with his 15,000 men, Gen. Banks, near Strasburg, on the 24th of 
May, early in the morning, and forced him, in a continuous retreat, 
over the same route over which he himself had been driven about four 
weeks ago ; and then still further on across the Potomac, which 
Banks crossed in perfect order, and reached Williamsport, Maryland, 
May 26th, in the evening. Jackson took about fifty wagons, large 
quantities of stores, ammunition and uniforms, stored at Winchester ; 
but, thanks to the superior discipline in Banks' corps, thanks to the 
full confidence of the officers and men in their General, and thanks to 
the superior combination and good generalship of the commander of 
the Department of the Shenandoah, Stonewall Jackson did not suc- 
ceed in taking his entire army prisoners, nor in driving them into the 
Potomac, and thus destroying them. One or the other he would, in 
all probability, have accomplished, against a commander not so pro- 
perly qualified as N. P. Banks. Gen. McDowell, in the meanwhile, 
remained undisturbed at Fredericksburg, and saw not the ghost of an 
enemy. This raid of Stonewall Jackson perplexed the Secretary of 
War completely ; he telegraphed to Governor Andrew, of Massa- 
chusetts, " the army of Banks is completely routed, and the Capital in 
danger." Such statements, coming from such a personage, although 
they were not founded in truth, caused a panic in Wall street, cost the 
country millions and millions, and spread consternation all over the 
land. Immediately after this alarming intelligence had produced its 
effect, the country was given to understand that Banks' retreat had 
been a mere matter of strategy, that Jackson was bagged in the 
Shenandoah Valley, and would never get out of it alive. Generals 
Fremont and McDowell were ordered to move at once and to inter- 
cept Jackson's retreat from the valley at all hazards. Both these 
Generals moved ; Gen. Fremont had the misfortune to lead his army 
wrong, to lose his way, and to arrive at Strasburg on the 2d of June, 
just in time to be too late to intercept Jackson, who had constructed 
a rope barricade, across which a large number of Fremont's cavalry 
stumbled, and were wounded and taken prisoners. Next evening, 
Fremont came up with the rear guard of Jackson's army, and in con- 
nection with Gen. Shields' troops, who had arrived from Fredericks- 



28 

burg, and over whom he assumed command had several engagements 
with the rebels, under command of Ashby, in which the latter had all 
the advantage, and finally eluded Fremont so completely, that for sev- 
eral days neither Fremont nor Shields, nor McDowell, nor the Secre- 
tary of War, had the faintest idea of his whereabouts. All these 
Generals kept their troops resting on their arms, believing the enemy 
to be just in front of them. Jacltson, meantime, was far away on his 
way to Hanover Court House, where, after resting and recruiting his 
army, he made, on the 26th day of June, the attack on the right 
wing of the Army of the Potomac. 

Thus, of all the work laid out to be performed by the commanders 
of the Departments of the Rappahannock, Shenandoah, and the 
Mountain Department, nothing whatever had been accomplished ; 
McDowell was still in Fredericksburg, which he had never left, 
except to go back to Washington. Fremont had accomplished 
nothing ; and Banks, although he had distinguished himself as a 
commanding general, in the offensive as well as in the retreat, had, 
by the interference of incompetent superiors, been compelled to 
abandon the advantages already gained. Mr. Stanton, relying, ac- 
cording to his doctrine in the Tribune letter, upon the Spirit of the 
Lord, upon inspiration, upon the blessing of Providence, and upon 
Joshua, to organize victories and plan the battles for him, had, of 
course, utterly failed in the task voluntarily undertaken to control 
armies in the field by receiving frequent reports from and giving 
orders to the commanders of independent corps. The necessary 
co-operation of all or any of the above corps in the advance upon 
Richmond by the army of the Potomac, which had been solemnly 
promised, had not even been attempted ; the success of that army 
had thereby been endangered, and the country had suffered enor- 
mous in men and means. 

In this emergency, the President considered it important to re- 
establish the unity of command over the corps of McDowell, Banks, 
and Fremont, which had been destroyed by his War Order No. 3. 
For that purpose he consolidated them into the army of Virginia, 
and appointed Major-General John Pope commanding general thereof, 
June 25th. Fremont to command the first, Banks the second, and 
McDowell the third army corps of the army of Virginia. 

Immediately after the announcement of this appointment, General 
John G. Fremont sent in the resignation of his command, because he 
considered his dignity offended by the appointment, as commanding 
general over him, of an officer whom he out-ranked. His resignation 



29 

was accepted, and after the command of the first corps of the army 
had been tendered to and had been declined by General Kufus King, 
Major-General Franz Sigel was appointed to that command. 

It may not be out of place here to mention that the authority to 
appoint a general of lower rank to command over officers out-ranking 
him — an authority interfering materially with the universally estab- 
lished military rules, calculated, when exercised, in nine cases out of 
ten, to cause mischief and ill will, to destroy harmony and cordial 
co-operation, and thereby to undermine elements essential for the 
success of any army — that this authority was given to the President 
by an act of Congress, originating with, and carried principally by 
the votes of, the friends of General Fremont, with the intention, it 
was said, to see General McClellan — who would not allow anybody 
to interfere with his official business — superseded by General Fre- 
mont, whom he out-ranked. As if Nemesis had willed it, the first 
instance in which the President thought himself justified to exercise 
this dangerous authority, he had to exercise it against General 
Fremont. How far the step taken by the latter was taken with good 
grace towards his friends, is a question on which opinions may differ. 
That General Fremont, as a soldier, hr- the face of the enemy, at a 
moment when his country's cause was in danger, when every man 
was asked and expected to do his whole duty, by act, by encourage- 
ment in word and example, acted wrong, unpatriotic, and set a bad 
example to every officer in the army, even if his resignation had been 
justifiable by strict interpretation of established military rule — on that 
point we say there can be but one opinion. Of all the Generals in 
the army, John C. Fremont was the only one who had no right to 
complain of or take umbrage at the exercise of the President's author- 
ity to supersede him by a junior officer, because General Fremont had 
been deprived of his command on grave charges in Oetober, 1861. 
The act vesting the President with the above mentioned unexampled 
authority had been passed soon after, and was the law of the land. 
When, at theurgent solicitations of his friends, the President tendered 
him the command of the Mountain Department, the General was 
fully aware of the existence of the act in question, and it was his 
duty, as a soldier and as a man, at that time, to consider and to 
decide whether or not, with such an authority in the President's 
hands, he thought it proper to accept a command in the army ? In 
accepting it, he knowingly and willingly submitted to take his 
chances of being hurt by the exercise of the President's authority, 
and waived all his right to complain in case he should be huit. 



30 

Military law considers resignation before the enemy an act of coward- 
ice, and makes no distinction between officers of liigber or lower 
rank. General Pope says on the subject, from Headquarters, Army 
of Virginia, Warrenton, July 30, 1862 : " No resignation of any 
officer whatever will be accepted, except upon medical certificate of 
the most conclusive character, or proof of worthlessness ; it is there- 
fore to be distinctly understood, that any officer of this army whose 
resignation has been accepted without medical certificate, has proved 
himself worthless and incompetent." 

When, in consequence of the utter failure of the summer campaign, 
President Lincoln had called for 300,000 volunteers, when a mass meet- 
ng was held in the city of New York, for the purpose of encourag- 
ing a hearty response to the President's call, on the 15th of July, 
1862, a fortnight after he had resigned his command before the en- 
emy, had set a bad example to every officer, soldier, and patriot, and 
all that, as we have shown, without any just cause ; when he ought 
to have hidden himself till time had made his act pass from the mem- 
ory of the people, on that day Jolm C. Fremont, in the uniform of a 
Major-General, appeared on stand No. 5, Union Square, and made a 
speech, asking the people to enlist as volunteers, and to sacrifice their 
lives on the altar of their conntry — who can wonder that the Gov- 
ernment had to resort to a draft 1 

General John Pope, as a captain in the regular army, was appointed 
by the War Department one of the officers to escort President Lin- 
coln to Washington. When the rebellion broke out, he was made a 
brigadier-general, and had a command in Missouri. When General 
Halleck took command of the department of the Mississippi, he sent 
Pope with a corps of about 12,000 men, to operate in the rear of New 
Madrid, while the gunboats made an attack in front ; this accomplished, 
without any resistance by the rebels, General Pope moved farther to 
the Arkansas line, to assist in the reduction of Island No. 10, in the 
Mississippi. General Schuyler Hamilton, who had command under 
him, suggested, as the General states in his report, to cut a canal 
through the swamp and bayou, for the purpose of sending transports 
and a gunboat below the island. Colonel Ripley, commanding an 
engineer regiment, had the canal dug by his men, and General Pope's 
corps was enabled to embark and cross the river. Some gunboats 
from above had ran the gauntlet of the enemy's batteries, and could 
protect the crossing army, against the attack of any rebel craft, sent 
up from Memphis to the support of Island No. 10. This crossing of 
the Mississippi, without the loss of a single man either in embarkation 



' 31 

i 

or disembarkation of the troops, although not interfered with by any- 
hostile demonstration, was, nevertheless, a great success. Buteventhis 
was eclipsed by a still more wonderful performance, next succeeding 
the disembarkation of Pope's corps on the left bank of the river, to 
wit, by the capture of some 6,000 rebels on their retreat from the 
evacuation of Island No. 10, without firing a shot. When General 
Halleck concentrated his army for the purpose of besieging Corinth, 
General Pope's command became part of the besieging force, and en- 
tered Corinth with the rest, after Beauregard's army had evacuated 
the place. This accomplished, active operation of the grand army of 
the West came to a stand-still. Almost all the generals holding com- 
mand therein (with the exception of Generals Buell and Grant, who 
always remained with their troops), proceeded to the city of Wash- 
ington, for purposes best known to themselves. Thus General Pope 
happened to be in Washington when the President needed somebody 
to bring unity in the operations of the three army corps above men- 
tioned. He was promoted a major-general, and appointed to the 
command of the newly-created army of Virginia. 

The achievements of General Pope out West appearing to great 
advantage — for distance lends enchantment to the view — but by no 
means indicating any qualification for a command of an army against 
an enemy, had, nevertheless, the effect, that his appointment to the 
command of the army of Virginia, was generally considered as a 
proper one. 

On the fourteenth day of July, General Pope issued the following 
order to the officers and soldiers af the army of Virginia : 

Washington, July 14, 1862. 
To the Officers and Soldiers of the Army of Virginia: 

By special assignment of the President of the United States, I 
have assumed the command of this army. 

I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts, your con- 
dition, and your wants ; in preparing you for active operations, and 
in placing you in positions from which you can act promptly and to 
the purpose. 

I have come to you from the West, where we have anvays seen 
the backs of our enemies, from an army whose business it has been 
to seek the adversary, and to beat him when found, whose policy has 
been attack, and not defense. 

In but one instance has the enemy been able to place our Western 
armies in a defensive attitude. 

I presume that I have been called here to pursue the same system, 
and to lead you against the enemy. 



32 

It is my purpose to do so, and that speedily. 

I am sure you long for an opportunity to win the distinction you 
are capable of achieving. That opportunity I shall endeavor to give 

7 0U - 

Meantime, I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases 

which I am sorry to find so much in vogue among you. 

I hear constantly of taking strong positions and holding them — of 
lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas. 

The strongest position a soldier should desire to occupy, is one 
from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. 

Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and 
leave our own to take care of themselves. 

Let us look before, and not behind. 

Success and glory are in the advance. 

Disaster and shame lurk in the rear, 

Let us act on this understanding, and it is safe to predict that your 
banners shall be inscribed with many a glorious deed, and that your 
names will be dear to your countrymen forever. 

John Pope, 
Major- General Commanding. 

This order fell like a thunder-clap upon the mind of all reflecting 
persons, but in particular upon military men. 

Proper conduct under all, even the most difficult and perplexing 
circumstances, is one of the fundamental and indispensible require- 
ments for an officer, of whatever rank, but in particular for an officer 
commanding a corps or an army, so much so that conduct unbecoming 
an officer is one of the gravest charges to be brought against him. 
To what extent proper conduct of an officer is required, may be best 
illustrated by the proceedings of a Court-Martial, held in New York 
in reference to charges preferred against the officer commanding the 
United States forces, embarked in New York, on board the steamer 
San Francisco, shipwrecked, and rescued by the captain of the Brit- 
ish ship Three Bells. 

An officer who lacks proper conduct, in the most ordinary affairs 
of life, is not qualified for, and is unreliable in, any command, but in 
particular is he utterly disqualified for command of an army. General 
Pope's ouder of June 14, 1862, is improper from beginning to end. 
The second sentence is, to say the least, discourteous to Generals 
McDowell, Banks, and Fremont, because it insinuates that these 
generals, although in the field for some months, had left their armies 
unprepared for active operations, and had kept them in positions 
from which they could not act promptly or to the purpose. Sentences 
three, four, five, six, seven and eight, contain nothing but self-conceit 



33 

and bravado. Our armies in the West would not deserve the credit 
for gallantry, for which they are justly distinguished, if they 
had always seen the hacks of the enemy — that is, if the enemy 
had always run away. It is a peculiar fact that at New Mad- 
rid, and at Island No. 10, General Pope had to operate in the 
rear of the enemy, and therefore only saw their backs, while others 
saw the enemy's face. At Corinth he saw Beauregard's back, 
but at a great distance, inasmuch as the latter had marched nine 
miles with his main army before Halleck occupied the place. Sen- 
tences nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen, in imita- 
tion of Mr. Stanton's Tribune letter, contain a slur on General Mc- 
Clellan, General Pope's superior in rank ; an officer who, at the 
time when the latter, in his order, forgot his duty to a brother officer, 
had led his army to beard the lion in his own den, had taken 
Yorktown, had won the battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks, and 
had never met with a single defeat. These sentences express opinions 
in open contradiction to the very fundamental principles of strategy 
in general, and to the revised army regulations of 1861, in particular. 
Principles, the violation of which caused the disasters at Belmont to 
Generals Grant and McClernand ; while, by the strict adherence to 
them, Beauregard saved his army at Bowling Green, at Columbus, at 
Island No. 10, and at Corinth, although at every one of these places, 
our generals predicted his capture. Principles which no soldier has 
ever violated without being severely punished for it. That a com- 
mander, proclaiming the principles contained in this order, could never 
fulfil the predictions contained in its closing sentences, is not to be* 
wondered at. 

Ten days after the above mentioned order had astonished the coun- 
try, General Pope issued, on the 26th of July, the following : 

Head-Quarters Army of Virginia, ) 

Washington, July 26, 1862. ) 

Captain Samuel L. Harrison, of the Ninety-Fifth Regiment of New 
York volunteers, is reported by his commanding general as having 
deserted his company on the 21st of this month, and gone to New 
York. A reward of five cents is offered for his apprehension. 

By order of Major-General Pope. 

George D. Ruggles, Chief of Staff. 

This order is unmilitary, and a palpable violation of the revis- 
ed army regulations of 1861, which, in sections 20, 24, and 50, 
direct a commander how to catch, how to try, and how to punish a 
de serter. They are just as binding to the general commanding, 
as they are to the youngest drummer-boy in the army. It is a 
3 



34: 

premeditated insult offered by General Pope to all officers of the 
army, as a class,— an insult, that in any other army would cause the 
general either to be court-martialed and cashiered, or to be shot at by 
every officer aslong as there was anythingleft of him (Gen. Pope). Some 
six years ago, for an expression, by far less insulting than the order in 
question, Lieutenant-General "Von Plehwe was shot dead by Second 
lieutenant Von Jachman, in a duel fought under the sanction of the 
Council of Honor, every member of the council being present at the 
duel. The Court of Honor who tried the case, honorably acquitted 
the principal, the seconds, and every member of the Council of Honor, 
from a violation of the laws against duelling ; and the King of Prussia, 
to whose army both the combatants belonged, although he referred 
the verdict of the first Court of Honor successively to two different 
courts, did not succeed in having the same materially amended. Not 
until every officer in our army, high or low in rank, recognizes in 
every other officer a brother in arms, whom he treats as such, and 
whose honor is as sacred to him as his own (till by his conduct he 
forfeits this recognition and thereby his commission), not until then 
can we expect our army to be raised to its fullest discipline and mili- 
tary efficiency. 

The President, for reasons best known to himself, on the 11th day 
of August, immediately on his return from a visit to the army of the 
Potomac at Harrison's Landing, appointed Major General Halleck 
General-in-Chief of the Army of the United States, and his arrival in 
Washington was daily expected. General Pope, nevertheless, thought 
proper, without awaiting this arrival, which took place July 22d, to 
issue, July 18th, the following Orders No. 5 and 6 : 
General Order — No. 5. 

Headquarters, Army of Virginia, ) 
Washington, July 18, 1862. j 

Hereafter, as far as practicable, the troops of this command will 
subsist upon the country in which their operations are carried on. In 
all cases supplies for this purpose will be taken by the officers to 
whose department they properly belong, under the orders of the com- 
manding officers of the troops for whose use they are intended. 
Vouchers will be given to the owners, stating on their face that they 
will be payable at the conclusion of the war, upon sufficient testimony 
being furnished that such owners have been loyal citizens of the Uni- 
ted States since the date of the vouchers. Whenever it is known that 
supplies can be furnished in any district of the country where the 
troops are to operate, the use of trains for carrying subsistence will be 
dispensed with as far as possible. 

By command of Major General POPE. 

George D. Ruggles, Colonel, A. A. G. and Chief of Staff. . 



35 

General Order — No. 6. 
Headquarters, Department of Virginia, i 
Washington, July 18, 1862. } 

Hereafter, in any operations of the cavalry forces in this command, 
no supply or baggage trains of any description will be used, unless 
so stated specially in the order for the movement. Two days' cooked 
rations will be carried on the persons of the men, and all villages or 
neighborhoods through which they pass will be laid under contribu- 
tion in the manner specified by general order No. 5, current series for 
these headquarters, for the subsistence of men and horses. Move- 
ments of cavalry must always be made with celerity, and no delay in 
such movements will be excused hereafter on any pretext. 

Whenever the order for the movement of any portion of this army 
emanates from these headquarters, the time of marching, and that to 
be consumed in the execution of the duty, will be expressly designa- 
ted, and no depai-ture therefrom will be permitted to pass unnoticed, 
without the gravest and most conclusive reasons. Commanding offi- 
cers will be held responsible for strict and prompt compliance with 
every provision of this order. 

By command of Major General POPE. 

Geo. D. Ruggles, Colonel, A. A. G-. and Chief of Staff. 

The rebel government retaliated by declaring that whenever Gen- 
eral Pope or any of his officers should be taken prisoners, they should 
not be treated as prisoners of war, but should be put in close confine- 
ment and be hanged. In his army this order caused so much lawless 
conduct that General Pope found himself under the necessity to issue 
another order, August 14th, amending the previous one, in conformity 
with an order on the same subject, issued August 9th, by General 
McClellan. All these orders having been launched, General Pope 
finally left the city of Washington to join his army in the fi«2&, July 
26th, 1862. Before this change of quarters he had ordered a move- 
ment by a part of his army under General Hatch, which resulted in a 
report all over the country, that he had taken possession of the town 
of Gordonsville, Va., a point of the highest strategical importance to 
the rebels. When the truth of the matter became known, Gor- 
donsville had not been seen ; on the contrary, for want of proper in- 
structions, an important bridge on the road thereto had been destroyed 
by our own men, and thereby had been converted into protection for 
the rebels against an attack from us, and into an obstacle to our pro- 
gress in the proper direction. 

The idea of gaining possession of Gordonsville (which at the time 
the first movement of Pope's army took place was occupied only by 
an insignificant rebel force, and might easily have been taken by a 
bold dash) seems to us, to be one of the principal causes of the disas- 



36 

trous results of the short campaign between the Rappahannock and 
the Potomac. Having failed to accomplish in July what at that time 
ought to have been done, General Pope did not take into proper con- 
sideration that the moment the movement of General Hatch was re- 
ported to Richmond, a force sufficient to hold Gordonsville was des- 
patched to protect it, and to defeat all and any of Pope's operations in 
that direction. The commander of the rebel forces, entrusted with the 
execution of this order, was too good a soldier to remain idle at Gor- 
donsville, when, on his arrival there, he found the Union army still 
spread over a vast territory, and far on the opposite side of the Rapi- 
dau. He intended to keep Pope as far away from his " pasture 
grounds" as possible. He therefore occupied and strongly posted him- 
self at and near Cedar Mountain, keeping Robin's creek in front, and 
surrounding on three sides a narrow plateau intersected by " Cedar 
Spring creek," and by two roads leading to Culpepper Court House 
and Sperryville. Into this plateau, which formed an elongated circle 
segment, the base towards the Union army and about a mile in length, 
General Pope, on the 9th day of August, sent the corps of General 
Banks, which, as we have seen, he had drawn from the Shanandoah 
valley, with instructions to hold this position while he himself, with 
General McDowell, remained at Culpepper, some seven miles distant,, 
ordering Sigel with his corps from Sperryville also to move to Cul- 
pepper. Banks had hardly taken position when the rebels opened 
upon him from both flanks and in front, with heavy artillery, placed 
in masked positions on a high elevation, which at the same time com- 
manded the only two bridges over Cedar creek, in his rear, over which 
he could retreat, or over which succor could reach him (see map of 
battle field). The General saw at once that to stand on the defensive 
would be destruction by the enemy's cross-fire ; to retreat would only 
hasten this destruction, in the attempt to pass the two bridges above 
mentioned. A brave, intelligent soldier, and a skillful commander, he 
at once adopted the only plan which gave a chance of success, that is, 
to dislodge the enemy from his strong position by attacking it. With 
fearful loss he gradually succeeded, by the brilliant gallantry of his 
troops, to force the enemy into a retrogade movement. In the evening 
General Pope appeared at the battle field, followed by Sigel 's and 
part of McDowell's corps, to within about two miles of the battle 
field, and for the first time discovered that the battle field was so 
narrow, and the roads leading to it so few, that it was im- 
possible to move fresh troops forward and withdraw Banks' 
corps ; Gen. Baaka bad to fight it o»t to the bitter end with his ex 



hausted troops, although some 20,000 men stood within a short dis- 
tance of him eager, but unable to march to his assistance, because 
Pope had sent him in to a bag. Night terminated the slaughter 5 the 
rebels withdrew a short distance to a near mountain ridge ; Banks 
occupied the position in which be had first been attacked, and appar- 
ently both parties attended to their dead and wounded. We say ap- 
parently, because the rebels saw at once that with the concentration 
of the corps of Banks, Sigel and McDowell, at and near Cedar Moun- 
tain, Gen. Pope had left open to them their old highway in the She- 
nandoah Valley. They, therefore, left a comparatively small force, 
it is said, under command of Ewell, on the Eapidan, and between 
Sperryville and Culpepper, to entertain Pope's army, to advance or to 
retreat a3 occasion may require, but under all circumstances to keep 
him there as long as possible, and to hang on his heels in case he 
should retreat. Gen. Burnside, who had joined McClellan's army 
after the seven days' battle, had lauded at Acquia Creek, and joined 
Pope. McClellan, with the entire Army of the Potomac, had left 
Harrison's Landing almost on the same day on which Banks dis- 
tinguished himself at Cedar Mountain, by saving a part of his army, 
in a position selected by Pope, where, in nine cases out of ten, his 
entire corps would be destroyed. Tbe rebel leaders were thereby 
relieved of all anxiety about the safety of their own capital. This 
movement, from a military point of view, by whomsoever it may have 
*been ordered, must be considered one of the greatest strategical 
blunders during the entire campaign. For a large army, the only 
military line of approach to Richmond, is the line of the James River ; 
the line by Fredericksburg we consider a military impossibility, on 
account of the constant destruction by the rebels of the line of com- 
munication, and on account of the impossibility to support a large 
army at so great a distance from a water base. 

Napoleon, when, contrary to his well matured plan to go 
into winter quarters at Wilna, he advanced into the interior 
of the enemy's country, towards Moscow, overlooked this very 
difficulty. The impossibility to protect, in the enemy's country, 
a line of communication a bundled miles or more in length, and 
in consequence thereof the almost incessant attacks of the French 
army by Cossacks, who swarmed around them like bees; de- 
stroyed every bridge, thereby retarding his march beyond all calcula- 
tion, made his retreat one of unparallelled disaster, almost annihilation, 
compared with which, the effect of the climate alone upon the army, 
in unobstructed rapid marches, would have been insignificant. The 



38 

rebel cavalry, under General Stuart, we fear, would be the Cossacks 
to any army tbat will marcb from Washington via Fredericksburg, to 
Richmond. 

This impossibility alone, justifies Gen. Halleck in not follow- 
ing Beauregard when be retreated from Corintb. Halleck's army 
was tben tbe largest Union army ever concentrated in the field ; 
it had had no battle since Pittsburg Landing, was in fine condition, 
was Avell supplied with everything necessary, had experience and 
success on his side; while the rebel army had nothing to show but 
want, retreats and reverses. The impossibility of supporting so large 
an army as his in the enemy's exhausted country, away from a water 
base, forced the General to allow Beauregard to move wherever he 
saw fit to go, to rest, to recruit, and to reinforce Richmond in time 
for the battles against tbe Army of tbe Potomac, which army would 
have been de-troyed, bad not General McClellan, by his genius, by 
bis energetic movements, his gallantry, dash, and military excellence, 
triumphed over the combined talent and bravery of the rebel leaders 
and their armies. The same reasons that prevented General Halleck 
from following Beauregard's army on their way from Corinth to 
Richmond, prevent the movement of a large army from Wash- 
ington, by way of Fredericksburg, for the occupation of Richmond. 
Relieved on the James River of the army of the Potomac, (which 
reached Alexandria soon after the middle of August, and was, in its 
single corps and divisions, separately assigned to the army of 
Virginia under General Pope, so that McClellan had hardly a 
corporal's guard left him,) the rebels sent a large army under 
General Lee, by way of Gordonsville and Staunton, in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, thence to Manassas Gap, and through Thoroughfare 
Gap by way of Bull Run and Centerville to Washington. This road 
to the national Capitol, upon which the rebel army had been moving, 
more than once during the war, had been left completely unprotected 
by General Pope. He had marched according to his ideas of concen- 
tration, placed his entire army in a small corner of his department, 
and carried his horrors of looking to the rear, so far as not even to 
dare to look to his flanks. He had, without the least idea of a reserve 
corps, or of the safety of Washington, pending battles in close prox- 
imity, drawn the entire force under Burnside, and almost the entire 
army of the Potomac, into the same narrow compass of his strategy, 
in which they had several engagements, all of them terminating un- 
favorably for the Union army, the reports of his brilliant victories 
to the contrary notwithstanding. At the eleventh hour, (after 



39 

General Lee had, by a cavalry expedition under General Stuart, 
which captured Pope's tent and all its contents, convinced himself, 
that his road was perfectly clear from Pope's soldiers ;) a fortunate 
accident placed General Pope in possession of a letter from General 
Lee, containing his orders for the movement on Washington, above 
mentioned. He now tried to dispute the passage of Thoroughfare 
Gap, by sending a corps to that place, but it is too late ; the rebels 
force the passage, and Pope actually finds a portion of Lee's army 
between himself and Washington ; fortunately, the rebel corps 
was too small to resist the combined forces under Pope, and he suc- 
ceeded in placing his army again between Washington and the 
enemy, but only to be attacked and driven from position to position, 
during five days almost uninterrupted fighting. Gainsville, Manassas 
Junction, the old battle field of Bull Run, Centerville, and Fairfax 
Court House, are in quick succession the scenes, not of well devised 
battles, but of a rough and tumble fight, in which, on their retreat 
towards Washington the Union army of heroes is destroyed in conse- 
quence of the total incapacity of their Commanding General ; till on 
the third day of September, they are forced to seek protection in the 
almost ungarrisoned fortifications constructed by McClellan in front 
of Washington. The enemy, in close proximity to the National 
Capital, with Maryland and Pennsylvania at their mercy, is halting 
to decide in what direction to advance. 

The more intelligent the rank and file of an army, the more accom- 
plished ought to be their officers. The better disciplined an army, 
the more it will suffer in the hands of an incompetent general. 
Armies experienced in actual warfare, require the most precise orders 
from their leaders. These are well established military truisms. 
Pope's deplorable August campaign, fully demonstrates their correct- 
ness. The troops under General McDowell had before this campaign 
hardly seen any active service ; the men did not understand to dis- 
tinguish a judicious movement from a fatal one ; they were tumbled 
about from one place to another, without knowing why nor caring 
what for. 

The troops under Generals Banks and Sigel had seen considerable 
service under their able commanders, and were well disciplined ; they 
very soon perceived the total want of a proper plan and purpose in, 
the movements undertaken by General Pope ; at the outset they had, 
relying on competent leadership, executed every movement as ordered 
and consequently had suffered in a fearful manner; Banks left with- 
out any orders at Brestow, when General Pope commenced his re- 



40 

treat, was actually surrounded by the enemy and had to cut his way 
through to reach Fairfax Court House ; Sigel, who was placed in the 
advance as long as the army faced the enemy, and had to cover the 
retreat, when General Pope began to look in the rear, — did not hesi- 
tate, it is said, to express his opinion of the total incompetence of 
that gentleman, and to call to strict account General McDowell, who 
by the want of General Pope's better judgment was for a time placed 
in command over Major-General Sigel, while Brigadier-General Reno 
had an independent command of a corps.* 

The generals and troops of the army of the Potomac, gradually all 
placed under the command of General Pope, had by long experience 
under General McOlellan, learned to understand that every move- 
ment of a Division or Corps forms part of a well-digested and com- 
pletely matured plan of operations, and that the orders for the execu- 
tion thereof were concise in every respect. These troops under men 
like Hooker, Heintzleman, Sumner, Fitzjohn Porter, Griffin, Franklin* 
Kearney and Stephens — every one of them the hero of a hard fought 
battle — at first went into action under General Pope, with the same 
cheerfulness that led them victorious through all dangers on the Pe- 
ninsula, but they very soon found they had a commander without a 
head and became dissatisfied. 

The newspapers, on the 15th day of October, published the follow- 
ing letter, said to have been addressed on the 4th day of August, by 

*To place General McDowell in battle over General Sigel ; is to put the 
horse upon the rider. If General Pope had not been completely blinded by 
his self-conceit he would have taken advantage of his good luck to have a 
man like Sigel in his army ; he would have given to that officer, the de facto 
command of the army of Virginia, while he and McDowell in the meanwhile 
might have taken the best possible care of themselves, sent despatches of 
Jorilliant victories to Washington and finally might have reaped all the glory. 
We regret that General Sigel has thought it proper, in time of war, on one or 
more occasions to make a political speech, but nevertheless we are forced to 
express our conviction, that of all the officers in the army of Virginia the only 
one capable to save that army from utter ruin, after the enemies' advance had 
passed Thoroughfare Gap, is Franz Sigel. In him the advantages of the most 
thorough military education and extensive experience as a commander are 
combined, with the rare gift of military genius, unsurpassed bravery, energy, 
and a bull-dog tenacity. These qualities he displayed in his celebrated re- 
treats from Carthage and from Rolla, as well as at the battle of Pea Ridge, 
when holding command under a general of inferior capacities, he had to force 
upon that gentleman a complete victory over the rebel army when a surren- 
der to the latter, was in that strategist's opinion the only chance for him. He 
displayed those qualities also in the three days' engagements on the Rapidan, 
after the affair of Cedar Mountains, where with a small corps he successfully 
disputed the crossing of that river by the rebels till he was ordered to move 
according to Pope's directions with McDowell. 



41 

Major-General Kearney, of the army of the Potomac, to a Mr. 
Halstead of New Jersey : 

Harrison's Landing, August 4, 1862. 

Dear Pet — I thank you for your kind, long letter. You extend 
to me hope. You suggest withdrawing me and my division from this 
ignoble position. With Pope's army I would breathe again. 

We have no generals. McClellan is the failure I ever proclaimed 
him. He has been punished, just as I at once comprehended the 
moves of the parties. He will only get us in more follies, more waste 
of blood, fighting by driblets. He has lost the confidence of all. 
Nor has he a single officer about him capable of bettering us. Sum- 

nor is a " bull in a china shop," and a sure enongh blunderer. 

lest his corps gratuitously at Fair Oaks. He is not now in his right 

place, and will be much worse. is a small brain, ossified in 

a " 4 company" garrison on the frontier. He was not " of us" in 
Mexico, but in a rear column once saw a distant flash in a guerilla 
fight. His skill is a myth, a poetical version of his own part at Bull 
Run. Porter is good in nature, but weak as water — the parent of 
all this disaster for his want of generalship on the Chickahominy. 

and Franklin are talented engineers. They might make 

good generals if they understood the value of elements in their cal- 
culations ; as it is, they are dangerous failures. 

When was drunk he had some few men drowned before 

Yorktown. I know of no other feat of his. Franklin's battle of 
West Point was a most runaway picket fight of ours. His part on 
the Chickahominy was unpardonable. He sent over a division (his 
own), was present on that side out of fire, and never interfered to 
protect them from being sacrificed by driblets and rendered a prey 
to their false position. I was horrified at it, as described by General 
Taylor and all others. Is it surprising that I want to get out of this 
mess 1 Besides, they have sent me a major generalship, like alt 
these others, dated from 4th July, muddled in a batch of new and 
very ordinary junior officers. Do they forget that I was appointed 
twelfth on the original list 1 that I, on the heels of Bull Run, faced 
the enemy with a Jersey brigade in advance of all others, against all. 
McClellan, McDowell, et id omne genus, nearly forcing me to come 
back of the " Seminary." Do they forget me at Manassas 1 My 
Jersey brigade that infected with panic the retiring enemy 1 Has 
Williamsburg never come to their ears ? Oh, no ! I really feel 
aggravated beyond endurance. Discipline becomes degradation if 
not wielded with justice. Patriotism cannot, amid all her sacrifices, 
claim that of self respect. Generals, victorious in the past, are not 
called on to expose their troops, unless those brave men are acknow- 
ledged. Their identity in their chief's promotion claims a date of 
their own high acts. Oh, no, I am nearer returning to the home I 
have given up, to the interests I have sacrificed, to my cherished 
wife, whose anxiety oppresses me, than I ever dreamt of in a war for 
the Union. But if the infatuate North are weak enough to let this 
crisis be managed by " small men of small motives," I am not willing 
to be their puppet. 



42 



My dear Pet, I am too lazy, and too little interested to dive into 
the future of this "little box of heresies," so do tell me— what do the 
people at the North look forward to in the future ? I fear lest this 
war will die out in rapid imbecility. 

For McClellan, he is burnt out. Never once on a battle field, you 
have nothing to hope from him as a leader of a column. How do they 
expect I ope to beat, with a very inferior force, the veterans of Ewell 
and Jackson? But these are episodes. We deceive ourselves. There 
was a people of old— it was the warrior Spartan, with his Helot of 
the fields. The South have realized it. There was an ambitious 
people of recent times, and a conscription pandered to her invasions. 
At this moment the South exemplifies them both. " Peace, peace !" 
but there is no peace. No, not even with a disruptured Union. Let 
the JNorth cast away that delusion. 

Draft we must, or the disciplined thousands of the South will 
redeem scrip in Philadelphia; and yet the true North must accept 
it, and quickly, to a man, or the moment it draggles in debate Mary- 
land, Tennessee, and Kentucky will cast past victories to the winds, 
and rise with their nearly allied rebel kin. My dear Pet, I shall be 
delighted when Henry can come on. As to Colonel Halstead, I 
tnmk that his case is a type of the insane and unnecessary despotism 
introduced into the army under the auspices of McClellan and his 
very weak aids. It is now too late, but why was not the cavalry 
put in my charge at the commencement ? Two nights ago the rebel 
batteries fired from across the river, and killed and wounded some 
thirty men Last night Hooker started on a crude expedition to 
Malvern Hills. He went out four miles and came back again. Still 
a false fuss" injures the whole army. McOlellan is dangerous 
from the want of digesting his plans. He positively has no talents' 
Adieu Get me and my « fighting division" with Pope. With best 
regards, yours KEAENEY. 

This document, dated Harrison's Landing, commences Dear Pet; 
it speaks of a mutual friend as Henry ; shows thereby great intimacy 
between the writer and the Dear Pet, but it is nevertheless signed 
very formal— « Kearney" — not your Philip, as everybody would 
expect from Dear Pet's intimate friend. The writer says, How do 
they expect Pope to beat, with a very inferior force, the veterans of 
Ewell and Jackson? How could Kearney know, on the *th of 
August, at Harrison's Landing, first, that the army of Virginia, under 
Pope, was very inferior to the veterans under Ewell and Jackson, 
when Pope reports he had 32,000 men at Cedar Mountain ? and how 
did he know that either of these generals, or both of them, would 
have to be fought by Pope ? when at that date, five days before the 
battle of Cedar Mountain, not even General Pope had the least idea 
of the strength opposed to him, nor of the name of their commander, 
and does in his report thereof not mention the name of the rebel 



43 

general 1 The letter continues : " Peace, peace," but there is no 
peace. Let the North cast away this delusion. All the rumors of 
peace propositions, and the talk about peace in the rebel Congress, as 
well as the peace speculations at the North occurred when the rebel 
army was in Maryland in the early part of September, after General 
Kearney had died on the battle-field. The names of several officers 
alluded to in the letter are omitted, while those of the greater num- 
ber, and in particular of those most unscrupulously criticised, are 
written in full. 

The letter, in its tendencies condemning everybody except the au- 
thor; complaining of want of proper appreciation of his superiority 
over everybody ; and requesting the friend to get him more power and 
into a higher rank; resembles very much the letter addressed to a 
friend by General Shields, immediately after the battle of Winchester* 
against Jackson, March 22d, 1862. 

For these reasons, we doubt the letter in question to be a gen- 
uine one, written by Major-General Kearney. 

If, nevertheless, Major-General Kearney has written this identi- 
cal letter to Mr. Halstead, we think the general must, at the time, 
have been laboring under partial insanity. According to all we have 
ever heard of him — we did not know him ourselves — he was a gen- 
tleman of education; an officer who had travelled in Europe, and 
held a commission in the French army with credit to himself and to his 
country. He had, consequently, occasion to associate with French 
officers, and become familiar with the rules of strictest propriety gov- 
erning the conduct of comrades-in-arms towards each other ; to 
learn the utter contempt in which an officer would be held who should 
express opinions discreditable to any other officer, behind his back? 
to a third person, and has had occasion to form an opinion of the mili- 
tary qualifications of a general. An officer, possessing these advan- 
tages, in his right mind, could never forget himself so far as to write 
a long epistle, touching on almost all the leading topics of the day, for 
the sole purpose of defaming the commanding general of the army 
wherein he holds a command, as well as every general in that army 
who has ever been mentioned with distinction, glorifying only himself 
and General Pope. Pope at that time, had never had occasion to show 
what he could do as the leader of an army, but had written a highly 
improper proclamation to the army of Virginia, and was known to 
have been exceedingly erratic in his reports as to the capture by him 
of a large portion of Beauregard's army on their retreat from Corinth, 
and as to the occupation of Gordonsville. Nor could his extensive 



44 

experience have left him, at his time of life, so miserable a judge of the 
qualifications of a commanding officer, and of his own best interest, as 
to prefer a command under the unmilitary, self-conceited, in every 
respect disqualified officer, General Pope has proved himself to be, in- 
stead of one under the experienced, gifted, dignified and successful 
commander of the army of the Potomac, and with his distinguished 
commanders of corps and of divisions, who had shared with General 
Kearney the dangers and privations as well as the glory of many a 
hard-fought battle. 

Gen. Pope's report of his campaign, of Sept. 3d, '62, (it does not 
say where the headquarters of the Army of Virginia are,) is a docu- 
ment in keeping with his proceedings since he was, to his and the 
country's misfortune, put in command of the Army of Virginia. He 
tries to convince the General-in-Chief, (who ought to know best what 
were the objects to be gained by the Army of Virginia, and what in- 
structions he had given to the commander thereof), that he committed 
this continuous line of military blunders for the purpose of saving 
the Army of the Potomac from destruction, on the James River ; 
while in all the battles except that on the 9th of August, at Cedar 
Creek, a smaller or larger part of that army was fighting under his 
command; while the heaviest fighting was done by these corps, and 
while the almost complete destruction of the Army of the Potomac, 
(which counts the gallant Kearney and General Stephens among those 
thousands who, with their lives, sealed the devotion of that noble 
army to the Government and the flag of the Union,) is one of the great- 
est losses the country has had to suffer from Gen. Pope's utter failure 
as a commander.* He finds fault with Gen. Fitz John Porter, Gen. 
Griffin and others, and has not a word of thanks for Gen. Sigel, while 
he insinuates that Gen. McClellan has acted wrong in requesting him 
to send a proper escort for forage, ammunition and provisions, which 
he had asked for from the latter. McClellan, as we have mentioned, 
had no troops left him., but would, according to army regulations, have 
been held responsible, and justly so, for the careless imprudence of 
sending government stores over routes everywhere harrassed by the 
enemy, without proper escort. His orders for the movements of 
troops are in some instances as unmilitary as those of Gen. McDowell, 
at Bull Run No. 1. 

*He censures everybody, either direct or by implication ; he complains that 
others have not directed the movements of the Army of Virginia, in his own 
department, to positions which he had neglected to occupy ; he omits dates, 
■which of course confuses his report ; he repeats statements said to have been 
made to him, while he has to admit that he knew them from his own knowl- 
edge to be false ; he appeals to his countrymen to judge of his military qual- 
ifications. 



45 

The management of the Army of Virginia by Pope, and the 
unpardonable reckless mismanagement of the entire campaign^ calls 
to mind Napoleon's well known opinion in regard to an army 
of lions commanded by a quadruped distinguished for the length 
of his ears. At the same time we cannot well fail to see how 
quick retribution has overtaken the man who, in his first procla- 
mation to the army dared to cast a slur at Gen. McClellan ; who 
boasted he had only seen the backs of the enemy, and who promised 
his army the inscription of many names of glorious battles upon 
their colors. His neglect of selecting a strong position, and of pro- 
tecting his line of retreat, and his policy to order his army to live 
upon the country and to dispense with means of transportation ; in 
fact his utter ignorance and self-conceit have cost the country thous- 
ands of valuable lives, millions of treasure, an entire campaign, have 
drawn the rebel army across the Potomac into Maryland, and have 
cheated the gallant soldiers of the honorable reward for all their 
fatigues, dangers and privations, the inscription on their colors of the 
name of a new Union victory. In his official report, over his own 
signature, he is forced to express thanks to the corps of the Army of 
the Potomac, and he has to declare that he had no chance left him but 
to retreat or to starve. 

A colonel of the army, dangerously wounded, writes a letter to his 
family, declaring he was dying a victim to the ignorance of Toy e and 
the treachery of McDowell. Gen. McDowell took occasion to request 
the President to order a court of investigation in this matter ; this 
request, in our opinion, ought to have been made to the Commander- 
in-Chief of the Army, at whose hands it probably would have re- 
ceived proper attention ; the President, we apprehend, will not be 
able to take any notice thereof. , 

On the day on which the defeated army of Gen. Pope reached the 
fortifications in front of Washington, he was relieved of his com- 
mand ; not dismissed from the army, but ordered to take command of 
the department west of the Mississippi. 

When the Government at Washington, by the not very distant roar 
of cannon, and by the appearance of the rebel scouts near the Chain 
Bridge, was informed that all the reports of brilliant victories, sent in 
by Gen. Pope, had not arrested the advance of Robert Lee's army to 
almost within speaking distance of Arlington Heights, and that the 
chances of his coming still nearer were rather alarming, it seemed a 
matter of utmost necessity and of personal safety, (even before Gen. 
Pope would reach Washington, to be deprived of his command,) to 



46 

find an officer competent to defend the National Capital against occu- 
pation by tlie rebels. 

General James S. Wadswortb was, to be sure, still Military Gov 
ernor of the District of Columbia, and nominally held command of all 
the fortifications around the city of Washington. He was entitled to 
the command — de facto — and we have no doubt he was ready and eager 
to assume it, if only to prove that he did not hold a sinecure ; but we 
have not learned that at this most critical time of Mr. Lincoln's ad- 
ministration General Wadsworth was ever thought of as the man for 
that command. It is said it was tendered to General Ambrose Burn- 
side, who in declining its acceptance declared General McClellan to 
be the best qualified man to save the capital, which reply proved 
Burnside's ambition subordinate to his patriotism, and the General to 
be a real hero. Other Generals were consulted ; they all pointed to 
McClellan as the only man for the crisis; General Halleck, invited to 
attend a cabinet meeting, is said to have been asked how many com- 
binations there were under existing circumstances for the government 
to decide upon 1 to which he replied, there were but two ; either to 
have Stonewall Jackson in Washington or to place McClellan in com- 
mand of all that was left of the armies, because he alone could stem 
the rebel advances. Finally the President went to see the man who 
had just returned from a six months' summer campaign, in a southern 
climate, who had shared with his soldiers the bodily fatigues, the 
privations and the dangers of battles, while his brain had been con- 
stantly working for the benefit of every man in his command ; from 
a campaign where his success had been prevented by nonfulfillment 
of promises Made him by the Administration. The President had to 
see the man whom a few days ago he had stripped of his command, 
the man whom almost that very day, persons in the confidence of the 
Administration had accused of treasonable intentions. He had to see 
the man who had been publicly sneered at by the Secretary of War 
and by General Pope, both of them enjoying the President's confi- 
dence ; the man who under all these circumstances had never uttered 
a word of complaint or of retaliation, who had strictly attended to his 
duties and had left the rest with God. How great that man of small 
stature must then have appeared to the President! 

All that was said during this interview will probably not be 
made known until the memoirs of General McClellan, one of 
these days, shall appear in print; because the President can not 
very well have any reason to make it known and McClellan has 
proved that he never talks. There can be no doubt that Gen- 



4f 

eral McClellan, who well knew that no power on earth could 
compel him to resume command after the treatment he had received 
at the hands of Mr. Lincoln's administration, had promises made him 
that he should promptly receive for his army all they needed, and that 
he should hereafter not he interfered with by anybody. 

Time alone can show how such promises are carried out while 
Edward M. Stanton remains Secretary of War. 

On the 2d day of September General McClellan was appointed to 
command the fortifications around "Washington, and all the troops for 
the defence of the Capital, which meant of all that remained of the 
armies of Virginia, of the Potomac, and Burnside's forces. On the 
same day McClellan went into Virginia to visit the troops ; his very 
presence electrified and invigorated them ; on the 4th of September 
he issued the following General Order : 

GENERAL ORDERS— No. 1, 

Washington, Sept. 4, 1862. 
First — Pursuant to General Orders No. 122 from the War Depart- 
ment, Adjutant-General's office, of the 2d inst., the undersigned hereby 
assumes command of the fortifications of Washington and of all the 
troops for the defense of the Capital. 

Second — The heads of the staff departments of the Army of the 
Potomac will be in charge of their respective departments at these 
headquarters. 

Third — In addition to the consolidated morning reports required 
-by the circular of this date from these headquarters, reports will be 
made by corps commanders as to their compliance with the assign- 
ment to positions heretofore given them, stating definitely the ground 
occupied and covered by their commands, and as to what progress has 
been made in obedience to the orders already issued to place their 
commands in condition for immediate service. 

G. B. McCLELLAN, Major-General. 
S. Williams, Assistant Adjutant-General. 

which will bear comparison with the first order of General Pope to 
the Army of Virginia, on account of the pen and ink portraits it fur- 
nishes, of the two men. 

The army of the Potomac had suffered great losses during the 
seven days' battle, which had never been made good. The two 
weeks' campaign with Pope had greatly reduced its already small 
numbers, and had cost it many valuable officers ; nevertheless Gen. 
McClellan made this army the nucleus around which to group the 
corps that were now, for the first time, placed under his command, as 
well as the new volunteers which had, to some extent, reached 
Washington. He himself, Burnside, Sigel, Banks, the commanders 
of corps and of divisions, the chiefs of the various departments of his 



48 

army, and his entire staff, were at work day and night. The con- 
fusion, the disorganization, and the demoralization in which the army 
had returned to Washington soon disappeared, and discipline, order, 
and cheerfulness became again the order of the day. Fabulous as 
it may appear, it is nevertheless true that overcoming all obstacles 
and difficulties in his way, and infusing his own zeal, determination, 
and perseverance into every one with whom he came in contact, 
McClellan succeeded in organizing a proper garrison in the fortifi- 
cations around Washington, for the safety of the capital, over which 
he placed General Banks in command; two corps to co-operate with 
the latter in Virginia, under General Heintzleman and General Sigel ; 
and on the 8th day of September he left Washington with an army 
of about 65,000 men, to meet General Robert Lee, who had sent one 
of his corps across the Potomac into Maryland, while he himself, 
with the bulk of his army, moved up the Cumberland Valley, to 
cross at Williamsport and Sharpstown. 

Before leaving the Capital, General MeClellan, whose official dis- 
trict was not definitely specified, but Avho went wherever danger 
threatened the country, suggested the propriety of abandoning Har- 
per's Ferry, and fortifying Maryland Heights, which he considered 
impregnable. General Wool, in whose Department both places lay, 
was advised with ; he communicated with Colonel Miles, command- 
ant of Harper's Ferry, and received the assurance that he would 
hold the Ferry under all circumstances against any force. McClel- 
lan could not do more. 

On the 11th September he occupied Barnsville, and took possession 
of Sugar Loaf Mountain ; while Gen. Lee issued on the same day a 
proclamation to the people of Maryland, calling upon them to join the 
rebellion. On the 13th of September McClellan entered Frederick 
City, whence the rebels had made a hasty retreat ; on the 15th 
Hooker and Reno drove the rebels, at the point of the bayonet, from 
South Mountain, and gained possession of Middletown ; in both of 
which engagements the rebels occupied positions on the top of a 
mountain ridge, while our men had to attack them up hill. Lee had, 
in the meantime, sent Jackson to feel Harper's Ferry, and to that 
General's agreeable surprise, the commander of that place surrendered 
on Monday 16th, after having not even been asked to do so by the 
enemy. This act, against which McClellan had cautioned j the 
President, which could not have been done in better style if Jeff. 
Davis had appointed and instructed the commandant, gave to Lee's 
army the benefit of two bridges across the Potomac, of about 12,000 



49 

superior rifles, 50 guns, numerous small arms, quantities of ammu- 
nition, of stores, of uniforms, and of equipments of all kinds ; 
deprived the Union army of over 10,000 fighting men, and added to 
Lee's availahle force all the men otherwise required to take care of 
Harper's Ferry. It further prevented McClellan from advancing 
his army above Harper's Ferry, and deprived him of the only hridge 
across the river that could have been of advantage to him. Lee 
concentrated his forces, to prevent the passage of Antietam Creek 
by the Union army; McClellan considered the point of sufficient 
importance, and the time about as good as any other for a fight. On 
the 17th of September, the Rebel army and the Union army, for the 
first time during the war, stood arrayed against each other in regular 
line of battle, with a front about four miles in length. For the first 
time did the topography of the country present an opportunity to the 
commanding Generals to have an almost unobstructed view of both 
the hostile armies. This circnmstance necessitated a management 
of the armies entirely different from that in all the previous important 
contests during this rebellion. Every strategical error, every tactical 
imperfection or hesitation, was at once perceived and taken advan- 
tage of by the opposite party. The personal influence of the com- 
manding generals became for the first time during this war instan- 
taneously perceptible on every point of the battle-field. The generals 
in chief command knew that in every movement, in every new 
combination, everywhere on the field, they met the intellect, the skill, 
the talent, of their opponent, personified in tens of thousands of 
living chess-men. On the rebel side, Stonewall Jackson, Ewell, 
Longstreet, Hill, and others commanded the various corps, under 
the supreme command of Robert Lee. 

Burnside and Porter on the left, Hooker and Franklin on the right ; 
Sumner, Mansfield, Reno, and Richardson, between them, and Plea- 
sonton, in reserve, held the principal commands under McClellan. 
Lee's army consisted of experienced soldiers, who had fought their 
way into this battle field from the interior of Rebeldom. McClellan's 
army had, only three week's ago, under a leader unworthy to com- 
mand such men, suffered a fearful defeat at the hands of their oppo- 
nents, had lost many of their best officers, and was to the greater part 
made up of raw recruits, who had never been under fire. Neverthe- 
less the Union army opened the ball early in the morning with 
artillery on the right, and gradually all the corps became engaged. 

A battle commenced which lasted all the day, in which the most 
stubborn resistance on the part of the rebels, was overcome with cold 
4 



50 

steel in the hands of Union soldiers, with strong arms and enduring 
muscles. Heroic deeds by the officers and men on both sides, call for 
the admiration of the world, while it curses the fanatic demagogues 
who have brought about and who now foster this unjustifiable war 
between brothers. The armies moved to and fro, and the line of 
battle shaped itself into that of a serpentine, changing frequently the 
convex to the concave, and vice versa. The passage of Antietam 
Bridge, work laid out for the noble Burnside, was hotly contested by 
Lee, who at once discovered the importance of the point, and by the 
assistance of his three bridges across the river, moved immense forces 
on his right ; but all in vain, again and again the Union soldiers would 
return to the charge, till finally they triumphed, and the bridge was 
taken and retained, although we are positively assured that Burnside's 
corps was out of ammunition the last half hour of the fight. Darkness 
found McClellan in the position occupied by Lee in the morning. Lee 
was driven about two miles back ; both armies equally exhausted, 
rested on their arms, On the 18th, neither of the combatants felt in- 
clined to renew the battle. On the 19th, when McClellan, who had 
been reinforced during the night, advanced, he found the rebel army 
in full retreat across the Potomac, at Harper's Ferry, Sheppardstown, 
and Williamsport, leaving all their dead, most of their wounded, and 
a great many stragglers behind. Harper's Ferry was also evacuated 
by the rebels after they had destroyed the bridges, and was taken 
possession of by our troops. Thus, fifteen days after he had taken 
command of a demoralized and defeated army, and ten days after he 
had left Washington, McClellan, with the gallant officers and men 
under his command, had driven the rebel army out of Maryland, and 
saved Pennsylvania from invasion ; had fought three battles, the 
last of them the greatest and the most important ever fought on 
this continent, against the Commander-in-Chief of the rebel army, 
an officer of acknowledged ability, assisted by Stonewall Jackson, by 
Longstreet, by Hill, and by Ewell. These names have been con- 
nected with aknost every battle in the East. A more brilliant cam- 
paign is not recorded in history. The same man who last winter used 
the spade to construct fortifications, which last summer saved the 
National Capital ; who carefully organized, disciplined and militar- 
ized the army of the Potomac, which by its efficacy to day gives the 
country the benefit of the care and devotion bestowed upon them by 
their commanders ; who secured' his position on the Chickahominy by 
earthworks, which enabled him to defeat the gigantic combinations of 
the rebel leaders for his destruction ; who, with the utmost precaution 



51 

and without the loss of a single man, moved his entire army from Har- 
rison's Landing to Alexandria ; this same man, in his ten days cam- 
paign in Maryland, displays a rapidity, a boldness, a dash, unsurpass- 
ed by any chieftain. The Governor of Pennsylvania had called out 
the militia and moved them to the exposed frontier of that State, 
which movement had undoubtedly its influence upon the rebel armies. 

The loss of both armies engaged in Maryland was enormous : the 
rebel General Garland was killed, and the total number of killed, 
wounded and prisoners in Lee's army is probably near 25,000, while 
the Union has to mourn the loss of the distinguished Generals Mans- 
field and Reno among the killed ; the gallant Hooker, Weber and 
Hatch among the wounded, and in round numbers probably 12,000 
killed and put Tiors du combat. That General Lee retreated immedi- 
ately after the battle of Antietam, proves him to be a General of great 
foresight. Knowing better than anybody else the exhausted state of his 
army and being able to form a correct opinion of the condition of the 
Union army, he at once estimated the advantage under which he could 
recross the Potomac, with his army divided in small commands, avail- 
ing themselves of every ford that could be found, if not harrassed by 
the Union army, and protected in case of an assault from cavalry and 
a few pieces of artillery by his corps at Harper's Ferry, at Shepherds- 
town and at Williamsport. He saw how much more orderly his army 
could move and how much smaller the loss in stragglers and wounded 
would be, than if awaiting a renewal of the battle, the result of which, 
in all probability could not be different from that just fought ; he would 
have to retreat, pressed by McOlellan, and to recross the river in con- 
centrated masses, therefore with greater danger, and most likely har- 
rassed by the long range Union guns. He therefore improving the 
chance of a very rainy and very foggy night, commenced his retrogade 
movement at once, and succeeded in reaching the Virginia shore; he 
then withdrew his reserves from the three principal crossing place's 
above mentioned, destroyed the bridges and placed the Potomac be- 
tween himself and the Union army. 

The reasons which induced McClellan not to renew the battle on 
the 18th are stronger even than those that governed Lee in his decision 
to retreat. The Union army in all its corps had had a very hard day's 
work, which in particular told upon the new troops ; it was almost en- 
tirely out of ammunition ; by the extreme efforts only of officers and 
men the rebels had been forced to retreat. To lead these same troops 
(he had no others), into battle again before they were fully rested, 
would have induced so skillful a General as Robert Lee to slowly fall 



52 

back, to draw McClellan with his fatigued troops after him, till he had 
placed his own army under the protection of Maryland Heights. From 
this strong position his artillery would have caused fearful havoc in 
the Union army, while the best rebel troops would have been selected, 
allowed a few hours rest and refreshments, after which they would 
have been led to attack McClellan, and in all probability with success ; 
because desperate positions call forth the most powerful exertions of 
men. Upon this truth is based the old strategic maxim : " build golden 
bridges for a retreating enemy." Why did McClellan not follow Lee 
across the river when on the 19th and 20th he had rested his army 
and had received reinforcements 1 He could not do it, because he and 
the Government had not troops enough to do it with, and the latter 
has not yet been able to make good the great losses in shoes, uniforms 
and ammunition, suffered by the army during the lamentable campaign 
under General Pope. To cross the Potomac without bridges, in the 
face of Lee's batteries on the opposite shore, is an entirely different 
affair from that performed by the rebel army, who had all the bridges 
across and both sides of the river in their possession. Had the gov- 
ernment had troops, General Halleck would have sent Sigel, who is 
always ready, with 20,000 men on the Virginia side to Harper's 
Ferry to destroy the bridges before Lee could use them, and thereby 
to place the rebel army between two fires. The call for 300,000 vol- 
unteers was made in July instead of March, 1862, when it ought to 
have been. The most urgent appeals from all quarters to send volun- 
teers to fill up the ranks of the old, instead of raising new regiments, 
met with no hearty response from the State governments. Generals 
Sickles and Meagher truly said, the process is too slow by which a 
citizen is transformed into a soldier. To organise new regiments, un- 
der inexperienced officers, requires more time than the country at this 
crisis could spare; the country, as well as Generals Halleck, McClellan 
and Sigel, have for the present to rest content with what has been 
achieved in September last. 

The withdrawal of the Pennsylvania militia, the moment the enemy 
was out of sight, shows the want of co-operation between the State 
and United States Governments. The unprotected condition of the 
Potomac, above and below the position occupied by the army under 
McClellan, we have to put down as another evidence that neither Gen. 
Halleck nor Gen. Wool had any troops to protect the river. That 
Gen. Lee sent only a cavalry raid into Pennsylvania, instead of tak- 
ing his entire army there, we consider the strongest evidence o of their 



53 

crippled condition. He might be forced to a hasty retreat, or could be 
badly cut up in battle, if the corps under Gens. Heintzelman and Sigel, 
in Virginia, and the army under McClellan, in Maryland, were in a 
perfect state of efficiency. As it is, Sigel has to wait for horses to 
mount his cavalry, and McClellan for other necessaries for his troops, 
and the country has to be patient. 

But how is it possible that the advance of the Union armies has to 
be delayed for want of proper equipment, armament or ammunition ; 
while the rebels, who are cut off from the entire world by our effective 
blockade, who have no large boot, shoe and other factories, such as 
the North, and Massachusetts in particular, can justly boast of, can 
and do move their large armies speedily* and always prepared, from 
battle field to battle field % 

Probably because the utterly despotic government of Jefferson Da- 
vis is forced to concentrate all its energies, first and foremost, for the 
purpose of keeping up the highest possible state of efficiency in the 
rebel army, upon which alone depends the existence of that Govern- 
ment and the success of their rebellious intentions, and further because 
the Confederates own all the slaves, and therefore do not trouble them- 
selves about the slavery question. 

The smoke of the battle of Antietam had hardly cleared off, the 
slain had not all been buried, and the wounded had not all yet been 
cared for, when on the 22d of September, President Lincoln issued the 
most important document that ever emanated from any President of 
these United States — his Proclamation abolishing Slavery in all the 
Southern States that on the first day of January next shall be in 
rebellion. 

The proclamation, at that moment, took the country by surprise ; 
the people anxiously waited to learn that man's opinion about this 
document, who but a few days ago had saved the Capital and pro- 
bably the Administration of his country. He took his own time to 
consider a subject of so immeasurable importance for good or for evil 
to the civilized world. 

On the 7th day of October, General McClellan issued the follow« 
ing order to the army under his command : 



54 

GENERAL ORDERS— NO. 163. 

Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, \ 
Camp near Sharpsburg, Md., Oct. 7, 1862. J 

The attention of the officers and soldiers of the Army of the 
Potomac is called to General Orders No. 130, War Department, Sept. 
24, 1862, publishing to the army the President's proclamation of 
Sept. 22. 

A proclamation of such grave moment to the nation, officially 
communicated to the army, affords to the General commanding an 
opportunity of defining specifically to the officers and soldiers under 
his command the relation borne by all persons in the military service 
of the United States towards the civil authorities of the Government. 
The constitution confides to the civil authorities, legislative, judicial, 
and executive, the power and duty of making, expounding, and 
executing the federal laws. Armed forces are raised and supported 
simply to sustain the civil authorities, and are to be held in strict 
subordination thereto in all respects. This fundamental rule of our 
political system is essential to the security of our republican insti- 
tutions, and should be thoroughly understood and observed by every 
soldier. The principle upon which, and the objects for which, armies 
shall be employed in suppressing the rebellion, must be determined 
and declared by the civil authorities, and the chief Executive, who 
is charged with the administration of the national affairs, is the proper 
and only source through which the views and orders of the Govern- 
ment can be made known to the armies of the nation. 

Discussion by officers and soldiers concerning public measures 
determined upon and declared by the Government, when carried at 
all beyond the ordinary temperate and respectful expression of 
opinion, tend greatly to impair and destroy the discipline and effi- 
ciency of troops by substituting the spirit of political faction for that 
firm, steady, and earnest support of the authority of the Government 
which is the highest duty of the American soldier. The remedy for 
political errors, if any are committed, is to be found only in the action 
of the people at the polls. 

In thus calling the attention of the army to the true relation 
between the soldiers and the Government, the General commanding 
merely adverts to an evil against which it has been thought advis- 
able during our whole history to guard the armies of the Republic, 
and in so doing he will not be considered by any right minded person 
as casting any reflection upon that loyalty and good conduct which 
has been so fully illustrated upon so many battle fields. In carrying 
out all measures of public policy this army will, of course, be guided 
by the same rules of mercy and Christianity that have ever controlled 
its conduct towards the defenceless. 

By command of 

Major-General McCLELLAN. 

James A. Hardee, Lieutenant-Colonel, Aid-de-Camp, and Acting 
Assistant Adjutant General. 



55 

This order relieved the anxiety of the people, because it conveys 
the redeeming assurance that the almost universal corruption, threat- 
ening the ruin of the country, has left us at least one man ; a soldier 
unsurpassed by the most famous of any age ; adored by an army 
composed of his fellow citizens ; the hero of some of the greatest 
battles ever fought — who, ill treated in the most unwarrantable manner 
by the Administration, at the very moment when corrupt officials allow 
his army to suffer from want of the indispensable necessaries, and 
prevent him from following up his successes in the field — while 
people unacquainted with this fact complain of his inactivity — 
tells those tens of thousands under his command, and shows by his 
own acts, that he holds obedience to the constitutional laws of his 
country to be the first and most sacred duty of the soldier as of the 
citizen in a Republic, and who thereby proves himself " a patriot." 

F. A. P. 

New York, October 25, 1862. 



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GENERALS J. C. FREMONT, N. P. BANKS, IRWIN McDOWELL, 

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PART II. 



" Time alone can show how such promises will ho carried out while 
Edwin M. Stanton remains Secretary of War." We said in October 
last* speaking of the promises made to General McClcllan by- 
President Lincoln on the first day of September last, when he de- 
clared the country the government and the army to be lost, unless 
the General would apply his genius and skill as a commander, and 
his irresistible influence over our soldiers to the reorganization of the 
army, which, demoralized under Mr. Stanton and General Halleck 
from April to August, had, under General Pope been disastrously 
defeated, and had been driven behind the fortifications near Wash- 
ington ; and then, with the reorganised army to protect the Capital 
from occupation by the rebels, and to save that Administration which. 
had prevented the success of his campaign in the Peninsula. 

The ink with which the above statement was written, had scarcely 
dried, when events demonstrated that the fulfilment of the promises 
made by our President ceased as soon as the capital and the cabinet 
were not any longer in imminent danger, and that plots and machina- 
tions against McClellan commenced anew and with increased bold- 
ness. 

We beg the reader will remember the following facts. Large 
quantities of provisions, forage, equipments and ammunition, on their 
return from Harrison's Landing, by the army of the Potomac, stored 

* Page 47 Part 1st. 



at Aquia Creek, and by the army under General McDowell taken to 
Fredericksburg, bad to be destroyed by our own troops to prevent the 
enemy from getting them, at the time when both places were suddenly 
abandoned in consequence of the disastrous defeat of all the brave 
troops, in July and August last, entrusted to the command of General 
Pope. Also that the visit paid by the rebels to General Pope's 
headquarters at Catlett's Station caused great loss of subsistence, 
equipments and ammunition of every kind ; also that all which had 
not been destroyed or lost already, was taken from him during the 
the last five days in August, when Lee drove General Pope rapidly 
and with fearful losses from Thoroughfare Gap to the fortifications 
near Washington ; that this very large quantity of subsistance, equip- 
ments and ammunition was lost in the short space of little over two 
■weeks ; that the long and forced marches and cuonter-marches of the 
corps under General Pope -had caused unusual wear and tear "in their 
equipments of every kind. 

, It will further be remembered that Gen. McClellan and his Reorgan- 
ized army left Washington for the Maryland campaign only one week 
after General Pope's retreating army had found shelter behind the for- 
tifications near the city, and that consequently the government had 
very little time to replace the enormous losses of every description ; — 
that the Maryland Campaign, in consequence of the extraordinary 
rapidity of movements, rnd the quick succession of it's battles, had 
consumed in equipments and in ammunition, all that the Government 
might have furnished daring that one week in Washington. That 
McClellan's army on its march from Frederick City to South Moun- 
tain and Antietam Creek, had to abandon the railroad line, Whereby 
the transportation of new supplies was of necessity retarded. 

It is natural that in consequence of all these circumstances, and in 
consequence of the fierceness and long duration of the great battle of 
Antietam, the army of the Potomac, after it had followed Lee to the 
left bank of the Potomac, should stand sorely in need of shoes, uni- 
forms,, ammunition, arms, and of materials of every kind. The fact is 
large numbers of soldiers had to go barefooted because they had no 
shoes. That such was the actual condition of the army, McClellan 
represented to tne Government, and the nation at large was by the 
thousand means of communication between the army and the people, 
in every section of the country, fully aware of the fact. 

Deeply deploring the imbecile management of the War Depart- 
ment, which had placed the army of the most liberal nation in such 
12 condition, the people expected the Government to make every pos- 



sible exertion, to place the army of the Potomac, in the shortest pos- 
sible time, in condition to open a new campaign. 

The same evil spirits, however, who by their " on to Rich?nond" 
caused the disgraceful " Bull Run," the same who in March last in- 
duced the president to relieve McClellan from the command as Gen- 
eral-in-Chief of the army; who thereby deprived the country of- the 
services of the General best qualified for that office, and caused our 
failure in suppressing the rebellion — the same evil spirits who in 
August last made the President degrade McClellan and deprive him 
of his command — the same who cowed down when Lee's army stood 
in front of Washington, and when personal danger made Mr. 
Lincoln discard the opinion of his irresponsible advisers and reinstate 
McClellan — these same evil spirits circulated rumors about the in- 
activity of the army of the Potomac ; about the loss of the favorable 
season for a fall campaign ; about McClellan's disinclination to pursue 
or to'Tight Lee ; about the exaggeration of the wants of the army 
et cetera. 

The people, that is a large majority of them, had too much common 
sense to doubt the General, who, during the entire war, has proved him- 
self a self-sacrificing patriotic soldier. A few, however, bound to 
prevent this war from being brought to a satisfactory termination by 
McClellan, based upon the above-stated rumors their new plans 
against him. 

The fearful losses from June to September sustained by the armies 
of the Potomac and by those other corps that by degrees had been 
attached to it, amounting in the aggregate to not less than 100,000 
men — the loss of many of the best officers — the incorporation of new 
volunteer regiments, under inexperienced officers — all this forced upon 
'General McClellan the duty, to properly reorganize, discipline and 
strengthen his army, to fill up the thinned ranks of the old regiments, 
and to prepare the new ones for actual service. At the same time he 
had to guard the, (at this season in many places fordable) Potomac ; 
and he had to impress the rebel General Lee with the apprehension 
that at any moment he would be attacked by the army of the Poto- 
mac. 

In September, when he accepted the command of .all the troops 
concentrated in Virginia,the President expressly placed Gen.McClellan 
above the official interference of Messrs. Stanton and Halleck, and it 
was therefore, also McClellan's duty, aside from all the above speci- 
fied business, to devise a plan for the new campaign. 

The campaign in Maryland was at an end ; and there can be but 



one opinion among military men, that this war will never be brought 
to a satisfactory end, and that the rebellion can never be conquered, 
if the Union armies follow, in whatever direction the commanders 
of the rebels may draw them. To destroy the rebel army we have to 
compel their generals to meet us, and accept battle wherever the 
strategical combinations of our generals shall designate the field of 
operations. In ouropinion there exists only one strategical combina- 
tion. 

To defeat the rebel army in Virginia General McClellan had to in- 
crease and in every manner to perfect his army as rapidly as possible 
under all circumstances, before the Potomac should rise high enough to 
make all the fords impracticable ; to have collected, somewhere on the 
Potomac, say at Alexandria, the largest possible number of transports ; 
to direct a great many of the new volunteer regiments toward his posi- 
tion on the Upper Potomac, for the purpose of occupying the front 
when and where vacated by the efficient old regiments sent to Alex- 
andria for embarkation ; to direct frequent and strong reconnoisances 
against the enemy's position on the right bank of the Potomac, for 
the purpose of strengthening their apprehension of an impending at- 
tack en masse. Whenever the river shall have risen to high water 
mark, that it can be crossed only on bridges, which the enemy does 
not possess, then to float down the Potomac from Alexandria as large 
and as efficient an army as can be carried, accompanied by the pon- 
toon trains and by some half-a-dozen iron gunboats ; to ascend the 
James river to a point as near fort Darling as practicable ; there dis- 
embark, and thence move on Richmond. The new regiments on the 
upper Potomac to be left there, to screen the withdrawal of the main 
army, and by their presence to keep General Lee as long as possible 
in front of them, on the opposite shore ; eventually these new reo-i- 
ments to form a reserve corps for cooperation with the army when 
and where needed. To direct the army at and near Suffolk, to ad- 
vance towards Petersburg, and thereby to cooperate with the army 
of the Potomac. 

We consider this the only sound and effective strategical combi- 
nation that under all the existing circumstances General McClellan 
could entertain. Here are our reasons : 

It cannot be doubted that, if Gen. McClellan's plan for his Peninsu- 
lar campaign had not been betrayed to the rebel General Johnson, 
before its execution had commenced, the army of the Potomac would 
have taken Richmond in May last, and that thereby the back-bone of 
the rebellion would have been broken. Even after Johnson, with his 



army, had reached Richmond from" Manassas, the rebel capital would 
have been in possession of the army of the Potomac, before 
the rebel reinforcement from the West could have reached it, had 
not the President and Mr. Stanton, by their meddling with matters of 
which they are profoundly ignorant,prevented the execution of McOlel- 
lan's plan, in depriving him, as soon as he himself had embarked for 
the Peninsula, of the largest corps of his entire army, as proved by 
the evidence in the McDowell court of enquiry. 

In March, as well as in October last, the main rebel army was 
threatening Washington, but the fortifications protecting the capital 
were more perfect and stronger in October than they had been last 
spring. In March the defence of these fortifications had to be entrust- 
ed to James S. Wadsworth, a politician ; while in October, Heintzel- 
man and Sigel, both of them experienced and tried Generals, had 
command of these fortifications and the troops cooperating for the 
protection of the capital. Their forces could be rapidly increased by 
the daily reporting new volunteer regiments, organized under the Pres- 
ident's call for 600,000 men. 

Moving to the Peninsula last spring, the army of the Potomac in- 
stantaneously drew the rebel army away from Manassas to Richmond, 
and thereby liberated Virginia, to the Rappahannock, from rebel 
forces.f Retm*ning to the Potomac, it was followed, by the same 
army, to the gates of Washington. The same cause would have pro- 
duced the same effect in October or November. The fortifications 
near Fort Darling and around Richmond, probably have been ma- 
terially strengthened and extended since August last, when the army 
of the Potomac was withdrawn from Harrison's Landing, by a strat- 
egical blunderer, who had his eyes wide open, but did not see, and 
who had the ruinous consequences of his evil designs plainly foretold 
him, but heeded them not. 

The Merrimac's blockade of the James River compelled the army 
of the Potomac to operate against Richmond from the York river 
After the destruction of the Merrimac by her commander, the Mou- 



lt Washington was never safer than while the army of the Potomac was 
at the Peninsula. Strategical blockheads only, could consider the raid in 
the Shenandoah Valley of 15.000 men under Stonewall Jackson, as direct- 
ed against the capital, surrounded with strongly gai-risoned fortifications. 
General Lee's instructions to Jackson have shown that it was intended to 
prevent the corps of General McDowell from being sent to Hanover Court 
House, there to join our army of the Potomac. The result proves that 
Robert knows how to play "soldier" with Master Lincoln, and with Master 
Stanton. 



6 

itor, Galena, and Naugatuck unsuccessfully attacked Fort Darling, 
but there was no army on land to cooperate with them. Afterwards, 
when the army of the Potomac had moved to the James river, the 
gunboats were not in condition to renew the attack. In November 
last several Monitors and other iron gunboats could have attacke.d the 
river front, while the army simultaneously would have attacked it by 
land, and we have no doubt would have taken it. The gunboats 
thereby would have been enabled to continue their cooperation 
against Richmond with the armies on both banks of the river. 
° Active operations of cur armies and of our river fleet in the West, 
facilitated by the rise of the rivers, would have held and occupied 
the rebel forces there, and would have prevented their concen- 
tration near Richmond, so dangerous to the army of the Potomac 

last summer. 

" Simultaneous naval demonstrations against Mobile, Charleston and 
Savannah would have detained a considerable portipn of the rebel 
armies at those ports, and thereby would have contributed to the suc- 
cess of the campaign. 

The large number of transports required to float the army of the 
Potomac from Alexandria to the James river, it is true, might have 
considerably delayed or perhaps entirely prevented the sailing of the 
expedition under General Banks ; but we firmly believe that the 
occupation of Richmond by our army.and as a necessary prelude there- 
to, a decisive defeat of the army under General Lee, would have 
been a more destructive blow to the rebellion, and would constitute a 
more comprehensive and effective protest against the hostile 
intentions of the governments in Europe, than any achievement 
reasonably to be expected by General Banks, at any point of rebeldom 
can ever produce. 

That no other combination can accomplish the object in view, will 
be admitted when we consider that the army of the Potomac, cross- 
ing the river while it is yet low and fordable above Harpers' Ferry, 
to follow General Lee in the Shenandoah Valley, will have to leave 
not less than 30,000 men on the left bank for the protection of Mary- 
land, Pennsylvania, and thereby loses so much of its effective strength. 
When it reaches Winchester it will find Lee's army between that place 
and Washington, certainly a very undesirable position for an army that 
depends for its entire subsistence upon the latter city. This relative 
position of the two armies on the movement down the valley 
continues to Front Royal ; the various gaps in the " Blue Ridge" 
offer to the rebels facilities to pass to the south side of the said 



ridge and to mask such a movement by a comparatively insignifi 
cant force. 

Apart from these geographical and topographical disadvantages to 
the Union army, Lee is in the valley, master of the situation ; he can 
wait for us, and only accept battle on a fed, or in the mountain 
passes of his own choice. In case the army of the Potomac is vic- 
torious in a battle, the result will be simply a loss of men and material 
with many subsequent battles farther down the valley, in all of which 
the rebels would have the choice of position. The further the army 
of the Potomac pursues him, the greater becomes the insecurity of its 
communication with Harper's Ferry, the base of its operations. The 
idea that General Sigel or General Heintzelman could move through 
Manassas Gap and cut off Lee's line of retreat, is untenable. Lee is in- 
formed of all the movements of our armies in Virginia ; he will move 
one of his corps through one or more of the gaps, and so get between 
Washington and both the Union armies ; placing Sigel between two 
fires while the army of the Potomac is held in check in the mountain 
passes. If the Union armies succeed in escaping all these dangers 
with moderate loss, and force Lee to retreat beyond Front Ivoyal 
towards Staunton, they are all the time moving away from their base 
of operations, and it becomes more and more difficult for them to 
subside, while the rebel army is steadily approaching their own base 
of operations and their strongly defended position near Gordonsville. 
Here they will stand a long siege with comparatively trifling loss, and 
whenever they conclude to fall back, the destruction of a single bridge 
in the railroad, will bring the army of the Potomac to a new halt, and 
all the dangers of this line to Richmond, per Fredericksburg, (alluded 
to on page 37, 38, part 1st,) will, on the Gordonsville line, threaten 
the destruction of that army. 

If the army of the Potomac crosses the low and fordable river, 
below Harper's Ferry — after Lee has moved to Winchester — the 
30,000 men for the protection of Maryland and Pennsylvania have 
also to be left on the left bank, and an' other considerable force has 
to be moved to Charlestown to protect Harper's Ferry and its 
approaches. Moving down on the south side of the Blue Ridge 
the army has to take possession and hold in strength all the numer- 
ous gaps from Gregories to Manassas — an accomplishment requiring 
rapidity of movement and good luck, because every one of these 
gaps, when in possession of the rebel army, will afford General Lee 
an opportunity to move his force through it to the south side of the 
ridge, divide the army of the Potomac, and in all probability cause 



8 

them great losses. The turnpike running parallel with the Blue 
Ridge in the valley of the Shenandoah, facilitates the concentration of 
his army at any point, while the want of a parallel road on the south 
side of the ridge, prevents a speedy concentration of the Union army. 
In case the army of the Potomac succeeds to get possession and to 
hold all the passes ahove mentioned, the march of Lee's army on 
the turnpike north of the ridge will be easy and rapid, compared with 
the march of the army of the Potomac over the cross-roads south of 
the ridge. The rebels will comfortably reach the Robertson River 
and their previously mentioned position near Gordonsville, before the 
army of the Potomac can come up with them. 

It is true, on this second line of operations, the army of the Poto- 
mac is always nearer to Washington than the rebel army ; its line of 
communication is not threatened so much as the line in the valley ; 
but on the other hand it can only march along side and after the 
rebel army, without a chance to fight a battle before the enemy has 
reached its stronghold. 

In the execution of either one of the two last mentioned combina- 
tions, the army of the Potomac, on its approach to Culpepper Court 
House and vicinity, will have to be concentrated, and all the forces 
left on the various gaps will have to be recalled, because it is ridiculous 
to suppose that a line from Harper's Ferry to Thornton Gap, Sperry- 
ville, Woodville, Culpepper and Acquia Creek, that is a line of more 
than 120 miles in length can be properly held and protected against 
rebel invasion. 

The country south and east of the line above indicated, and north- 
west of the Potomac will, therefore, in all three possible combinations 
for a new campaign, be unprotected, and will be subject to more or 
less frequent occupation by the rebels ; but when the rebel army fol- 
lows the army of the Potomac to the peninsula, General Lee will 
hardly leave any of his men east of Gordonsville, to molest the inhab- 
itants in the district above designated. 

To march the army of the Potomac at this late season of the year, 
poorly equipped, from their position above Harper's Ferry on either 
one of the last described two lines towards Gordonsville, will involve 
an amount of hardship, privations and suffering, particularly to the new 
regiments, which the impossibility of gaining any military advantage 
should prevent from being inflicted upon those brave heroic soldiers. 

General Pleasanton's skirmish near Martinsburg, October 1st, the 
successful raid to Leesburg, and the capture of a rebel wagon train, 
and of General Longstreet's official papers by Colonel Egan. October 5; 



and several similar reconnoissances to the right bank of the Poto- 
mac, we naturally considered as indicative that General McClellan 
was preparing the execution of the strategical combination which we 
are firmly convinced to be the only sound one for the new cam- 
paign. 

In the latter part of October, the army of the Potomac crossed the 
river and rapidly moved up to and took possession of the several 
gaps on the south side of the Blue Ridge. Grave doubts, we must 
confess, then arose in our mind as to the strategical capacity of Gen- 
eral McClellan. 

The report presented by this Commission, consisting of Major-General 
Hunter as President, and four other General and Staff Officers of Volun- 
teers, to investigate the conduct of certain officers in connection with the 
surrender of Harper's Ferry in September last, confirming m substance 
what we said about the surrender of that position reads thus : 

" The Commission has remarked freely on Colonel Miles, an old officer, 
who has been killed in the service of his country, and it can not, from any 
motives of delicacy, refrain from censuring those, in high command, when it 
■thinks such censure deserved. The General-in-Chief has testified that 
General McClellan, after having received orders to repel the enemy invad- 
ing the State of Maryland, marched only six miles per day, on an average, 
when pursuing this 'invading enemy. The General-in- Chief also testifies 
that in his opinion, he could and should have relieved and protected Harper s 
Ferry, and in this opinion the Commission fully concur." 

" By reference to the evidence it will be seen that at this very moment Col- 
onel Ford abandoned Maryland Heights, his little army was in reality 
relieved by General Franklin's and Sumner's corps at Crampton s trap, 
within seven miles of his position.''' 1 

When we remind the reader of the fact, that the corps of Generals 
Franklin and Sumner belong to the Army of the Potomac, and acted 
under command of General McClellan, he will at once see that the 
Commission contradict themselves ; in the last sentence of the first 
citation they intend to censure McClellan because he could and should 
have relieved Harper's Ferry ; and in the latter citation, they say 
that Generals Franklin and Sumner— that is, General McClellan— 
actually had relieved Colonel Ford's little army. The latter assertion 
is based upon actual facts ; the previous one based upon the opinion 
of the General-in-Chief— H. W. Halleck. 

It is well known that General Halleck was not with McClellan's 
army in Maryland, nor was he at or near Harper's Ferry ; he therefore 
could not give evidence as an eye-witness, *from his own personal 
knowledge of facts. As an expert he cannot very well have given 
an opinion, because in that character he does not possess one. 
General Halleck never in his life had to defend a besieged place, 



10 

wherein lie was relieved; he never led a command to the relief of a 
besieged brother officer ; he never besieged a place held by an armed 
enemy — his investments having all been of a pacific character, and 
upon convertible security; consequently in matters of siege and 
relief he cannot speak from experience. As to General Halleck's 
superior- judgment on military and strategical matters in general, and 
as to the resp*ect to which his opinion is entitled on that account, we 
shall take occasion to say a few words on another page. 

We cannot understand why the Commission — by the shameful 
imbecility of an old officer who disgracefully surrendered a strong 
position ; forced to remark freely on that old officer, should com- 
mit themselves, on General Halleck's opinion, to censure General 
McClellan ; who, although a young officer, had just accomplished 
what General Halleck had utterly despaired of (to save the capital, 
the administration, and General Halleck himself) — when the evidence 
of facts, elicited by themselves, compels them to contradict that 
opinion in substance. In our opinion it was the duty of the Com- 
mission to censure the person high in office who appointed the old 
imbecile officer to the command of an important strategical position, 
and also him who did not carry out General McClellan's suggestion 
to permit Miles with all his force to join the Army of .the Potomac. 

Colonel Miles, as General Wool says (whom the Commission had 
to admit they erroneously censured), was appointed to the command 
of Harper's Ferry by Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, and by him, per special 
order, relieved from the control of any other officer, so that he had to 
report direct to the Secretary of War. This order has never been 
repealed. The remark, in General Halleck's Report to the Secretary 
of War, Dec. 2d., that he " directed McClellan to assume control of 
" all troops within his reach, without regard to departmental lines, ,r 
can evidently be intended only to throw the responsibility for the 
Harper's Ferry affair upon McClellan; it is not accompanied with 
the candid statement that the command at Harper's Ferry was dis- 
tinctly excluded by General Halleck's superior, the Secretary of War, 
from departmental control. That this was the case, that General 
Halleck was cognizant of it — and that General McClellan understood 
it to be so — and that the insinuations in the Report of the General-in- 
chief of the Army of the United States to the Honorable Secretary 
of War are false — that the General-in-Chief knew them to be* false — 
and that Mr. Stanton must, of necessity, have known them to be false, 
because by him Colonel Miles had been removed from the control of 
General Wool and thereby from General McClellan — all this is 



11 

established by the witness Halleck, before the Harper's Ferry Com- 
mission, who there testifies that on the 11th of September, three days 
before the battle of South Mountain, General McClellan telegraphed 
to him " to give permission to Colonel Miles and his command to join 
the Army of the Fotomac." If McClellan had possessed authority 
to give orders to the commander of Harper's Ferry, as General 
Halleck insinuates in his report he did have, there would have been no 
necessity to ask somebody to give permission to Colonel Miles. The 
General-in-Chief's want of any strategical idea prevented him from 
comprehending the wisdom of McClellan's suggestion on this as on a 
previous occasion. As an excuse for this, he says in his report, Dec. 
2, " To withdraw him (Miles J entirely from that position, would not 
only expose the garrison to capture, but all the stores and artillery 
collected at that place must either be destroyed or left to the enemy^ 
That the garrison couldh&ve joined McClellan on the 11th is proved- 
by the fact that some 1,500 men left Harper's Ferry on the 14th, the 
day previous to the surrender, and reached the Army of the Potomac ; 
the stores and artillery actually fell into the enemy's hand by the 
surrender, before any damage whatever had been done to them ; but 
in addition to this, the arms of 11,000 soldiers fell into the enemy's 
hands ; the Army of the Potomac was deprived of the assistance of 
that force, and the nation was insulted by a surrender, in the fact 
that the besieger did not even ask for it, so disgraceful that it ex- 
ceeds anything recorded in history. 

The Commission knew, by official documents at their control, when 
General McClellan left "Washington for Maryland, and when his two 
corps of Sumner and Franklin were at Crampton Gap. The maps 
at their control gave them the distance performed by the army, and 
the Committee themselves could with the same mathematical accuracy 
as^General Halleck for them, ascertain the average number of miles 
per day marched by the army under McClellan. General Halleck 
only, we think, could testify that pripr to the battle of Antietam* — to 
that time alone his testimony refers ; McClellan was pursuing Lee's 
army. That army was not retreating before nor avoiding the army 
under McClellan — such a movement alone could enable the latter to 
pursue him ; while on the other hand it would make it impossible to 
repel him ; what Mr. Halleck testifies McClellan was ordered to do 
— and what all the world knows he actually did do. 



* Harper's Ferry was surrendered Sept. 15; the battle of Antietam 
took place Sept. 17, 1862. 



12 



General Lee, when he heard of the approach of Union troop ..selected 
a po 81 t.on on his road to Annapolis Junction, there to fight and to 
annihilate whatever small force of our army might put themselves in 
h.s way. That the demoralized army f General Pope— which he 
had, only a few days ago, driven before him to~ Washington— could 
be reorganized and moved to Maryland in time to dispute his advance. 
Lee considered an utter impossibility. So strong was he impressed 
with this, thai he detacned large forces of his army to Harper's Ferry 
and to Maryland Heights (who, the moment he found McClellan with 
h.s army before him, as the Commission states, were hurried to the 
.support of tee) ; and that from Frederick City, Sept. 11th, he issued 
hill proclamation to the people of Maryland. The witness Hailed 
was very erratic when he testified that McClellan was pursuing the 
enemy. 

After the logic of events had Compelled the so-called military heads 
in Washington-Mr. Stanton, Mr. Halleck, and his other most hitter 
enemies and unscrupulous slanderers included— either openly to 
express their conviction, or silently to admit, that if it could be 
accomplished at all, McClellan was the only man capable to repel 
the victorious rebel army on their march north; after— under the* 
pressure of this universal and unhesitatingly ex pressed conviction- 
Mr. Lincoln had solicited him to assume suprcme^command of all 
that was left of the, several armies destroyed under" Mr. Pope ; after 

that, we say, ii seems preposterous to doubt that McClellan was the 
best judge of the rapidity with which his new regiments could move ; 
of how much Hme it required to discipline and militarize them on 
the inarch ; how rapid, under the known mismanagement of the 
departments in Washington, his ammunition and subsistence trains 
would come, forward ; in fine, when and what distance, with the 
immeasurable responsibilities piled upon his shoulders, he could 
advance. 

For a person in General llalleck's peculiar position— after McClel- 
lan has succeeded in repelling the dangerous enemy, thereby saving 
amongothers the General himself— to step upon the witness-stand 
and try by his testimony to criticise McClcllan'o movements, 1,., to 
say the least, very unique. 

Leaving the, correctness or incorrectness of (ho average, march 
of six miles per day, as completely irrelevant, untested, we shall 
consider how General Halleck is justified in designating, as be does, 
an average march of six miles per day as censurahly slow, by placing 
th^, woxi only before six mile* > we will beforehand give him credit, 



13 

however, for the new idea that there ever has existed, or does now 
exist, any regulation as to the rate pf speed with which an army has 
to repel an invading enemy. Comparison with the movements of 
other armies under similar circumstances will best enahle ns to come 
to a proper conclusion on this point. 

General Pope, if we an: well informed, was put in command of the 
Army of Virginia and was ordered to repel the rebel forces crossing 
the Rappahannock: on the. 14th day of July last, he, in his first order 
to the oilicers and soldiers of his army, says : 

"I have spent two weeks in learning your whereabouts, your con- 
dition and your wants; in preparing you for active operations and in 
placing you in positions from which you can act promptly and to the 
purpose." 

That dashing general, when ordered "to repel an invading enemy" 
with an army in fine condition) two thirds of which had hardly lost a 
man in an engagement, required two weeks to put himself and his 
army in, what he considered, a proper position. Toward the enemy 
he had not advanced an inch. 

General McClellan was put in command of that same army after it 
had been routed and demoralized, and far more than decimated, 
under Mr. Pope, on tho 2d day of September. On the 4th he assumed 
command, and on the 17th day of Septemher, alter having won 
two others, he fought and won tho great battle of Antietam ; on the 
19th he occupied the banks of the Potomac, had actually repelled the 
invading enemy, and had completed in two weeks, one of the most 
brilliant campaigns on record, llalleck, in his report of the Pope 
campaign, does not say a single word about the average rate of speed 
per day with which he moved in ]>ursuit of the invader, nor with 
which he performed the reverse movement. 

If our conceptions of military operations are not entirely wrong, it 
was General llalleck's object, and he was under orders, to repel the 
invading army under Beauregard after their attempt to drive Grant's 
corps of llalleck's army, into the Tennessee River at Pittsburgh 
Landing, April 5th, 1S()2. It took General llalleck until May 2<Jth, 
that is fifty-live days, to, what he calls, 'pursue the invading enemy 
to Corinth, a distance of about twenty miles, or at a rate of speed of 
a little over a third part of a mile }>cr day. At Corinth, for reasons 
publicly as yet unknown, he stopped repelling and pursuing alto- 

gether, allowed his generals to go a- travelling, his large army 
gradually to dwindle away, and permitted the enemy unmolested to 
reinforce the rebel army massed around Richmond against the Army 
of the Potomac. 



14 

Between May 7th and July 2nd, 1862, in fifty six days, McClellan, 
with the army of the Potomac, fought the battles of Williamsburg, 
West Point, Fair Oaks, Mechanicsville, Hanover Court-House, Sav- 
age Station, Game's Mill, White Oak Swamp, Cross-roads and Mal- 
vern Hill ; and thereby secured for his name a place in history, on 
her scroll of fame, side by side with the few great strategists endowed 
with a military genius of the highest order. Never for a day would 
he leave his noble army, not even to see the President : Mr. Lincoln 
had to go to see the General in camp, at Harrison's Landing, as well 
as on the upper Potomac among the half-clad, bare-footed heroes of 
Antietam. 

Such is McClellan, whose strategic movements on his march to save 
the Administration, ha.d to be criticised before a commission ; who had 
not asked the General to appear before them, and thereby showed 
that they considered his acts entirely unconnected with the Harper's 
Ferry affair, which they had to investigate; and such is William H. 
Halleck, General-in-Chief of the army of the United States, the wit- 
ness upon whose opinion the censure of George B. McClellan is based 
because he pursues too slow. 

We have investigated the report of the Harper's Ferry commis- 
sioners at some length, because this report convinced us that the in- 
trigues in Washington were at work again, at work against McClel- 
lan, against the army, and consequently against the best interests of 
the country. It showed that the President's promises would not be 
fulfilled ; it threw the first light on the origin of what we consider a 
most unpardonable strategical blunder ; it showed us that the miser- 
able plan for the Fall campaign can not be charged against General 
McClellan. 

In the execution of this plan, the army of the Potomac had with 
brilliant success occupied all the mountain passes from Gregory Gap 
to Manassas Gap. Thoroughfare Gap and Warrenton were in our 
possession ; the headquarters of the commanding General were at 
Rectertown. A snow storm swept over the mountains, when at mid- 
night of Nov. 7, General Buckingham arrived at headquarters and 
handed to McClellan the following order : 

GENERAL ORDERS-No. 182. 
War Department, Adjutant-General's Office, ) 
Washington, Nov. 5, 1862. \ 

By direction of the President of the United States, it is ordered that 
Major-General McClellan be relieved from the command of the army 
of the Potomac, and that Major-General Burnside take the command 
of that army. By order of the Secretary of War. 

E. M. Townsend, A. A. General. 



15 

McClellan at once- surrendered his command to General Burnside, 
and issued the following address to his army : 

Headquarters Army of the Potomac, ) 
Camp near Rectortown, Va.. Nov. 7, 1862. \ 
Officers and Soldiers of the Army of the Potomac: 

An order of the President devolves upon Major-General Burnside the 
command of this army. In parting from you I cannot express the love 
and gratitude I bear to you. As an army, you have grown up under my 
care. In you I have never found doubt or coldness. The battles you 
have fought under my command will proudly live in our nation's history. 
The glory you^have achieved ; our mutual perils and fatigues ; the graves 
of our comrades' fallen in battle and by disease ; the broken forms of those 
wounds and ^sickness have disabled — the strongest associations which can 
exist among men, unite us still by an indissoluble tie. We shall ever be 
comrades in supporting the Constitution of our country aud the national- 
ity of its people. 

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, 

Major-General U. S. A. 



He then went with Burnside and all the staff officers to bid fare- 
well to the several corps of the army, who were drawn up in line, and 
received him with military salutes. "Dcn't let him go !" "Bring him 
back !" "He must not go !'' and similar were the exclamations of 
thousands upon thousands of our brave veteran soldiers, who under 
their General, and by his example had learned to stand cool and firm 
in the face of death, because their country's cause demanded it, and 
to be humane and courteous towards an unarmed enemy because their 
country's cause demanded that also. 

We have seen letters of officers and private soldiers belonging to 
that army ; they all express the grief, the sorrow, the deep dissatis- 
faction of the army over the removal of their beloved General. 

On reaching the railway station to take the cars, a salute was fired ; 
the troops drawn up in line, afterwards broke ranks and many called 
for a few parting words. While on the platform of the railroad depot 
he said in response : 

"Stand by Burnside as you have stood by me, and all will be well. 
Good bye." 

When the news of General McClellan's removal from command was 
published, it was accompanied by the following letter from General 
Halleck to the Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and a tele- 
graphic dispatch from General McClellan to General Meigs, Quarter- 
Master General : 



16 

Headquarters of the Army, ) 
Washington, October 28, 1862. (, 

Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War. 

Sir : — In reply to the general interrogatories contained in your letter of 
yesterday, I have to report : 

1. That requisitions for supplies to the army under General McClellan 
are made by his staff officers on the Chiefs of Bureaus here ; that is, for 
Quartermaster's supplies, by his Chief Quartermaster on the Quarter- 
Master- General ; for Commissary supplies, by his Chief Commissary on 
the Commissary-General, &c No such requisitions have been, to my 
knowledge made upon the Secretary of War, and none upon the General- 
in-Chief. 

2. On several occasions Gen. McClellan has telegraphed to me that his 
army was deficient in certain supplies. All these telegrams were imme- 
diately referred to the heads of Bureaus with orders to report. It was 
ascertained that in every instance the requisitions had been immediately 
filled, except one, where the Quartermaster-General had been obliged to 
send from Philadelphia certain articles of clothing, tents, &c, not having 
a full supply here. There has not been, so far as I could ascertain, any 
neglect or delay in any Department or Bureau, in issuing all supplies 
aaked for by Gen. McClellan or by the officers of his staff. Delays have 
occasionally occurred in forwarding supplies by rail, on account of the 
crowded condition of the depots, or of a want of cars; but whenever 
notified of this, agents have been sent out to remove the difficulty. Under 
the excellent superintendence of General Haupt, I think these delays 
have been less frequent and of shorter duration than is usual with freight 
trains. An army of the size of that under General McClellan will fre- 
quently be for some days without the supplies asked, on account of ne- 
glect in making timely requisitions, and unavoidable delays in forwarding 
them, and in distributing them to the different brigades and regiments. 

From all the information I can obtain, I am of opinion that the requi- 
sitions from that army have been filled more promptly, and that the men, 
as a general rule, have been better supplied, than our armies operating in 
the West. The latter have operated at much greater distances from the 
the sources of supply, and have had far less facilities for transportation. 
In fine, I believe no armies in the world, while in campaign, have been 
more promptly or better supplied than ours. 

3. Soon after the battle of Antietam, Gen. McClellan was urged to give 
me information of his intended movements, in order that if he moved be- 
tween the enemy and Washington, reinforcements could be sent from this 
place. On the first of October, finding that he purposed to operate from 
Harper's Ferry, I urged him to cross the river at once and give battle to 
the enemy, pointing out to him the disadvantages of delaying till the 
Autumn rains had swollen the Potomac and impaired the roads. On the 
6th of October he was peremptorily ordered to " cross the Potomac and 
give battle to the enemy or drive him South. Your army must move now 
while the roads are good." It will be observed that three weeks have 
passed since this order was given. 

4. In my opiniop there has been no such want of supplies hi the army 
under General McClellan as to prevent his compliance with the orders to 
advance against the enemy, Had he moved to the South side of the 
Potomac, he could have received his supplies almost as regularly as by 
remaining inactive on the north. 

On the 7th of October, in a telegram in regard to his intended move- 
ments, Gen. McClellan stated that it would require at least three days to 



17 

supply the First, Fifth and Sixth Corps, that they needed shoes and other 
indispensable articles of clothing, as well as shelter tents. No complaint 
was made that any requisitions had not been filled, and it was inferred from 
his language that he was only waiting for the distribution of his supplies. 
On the 11th he telegraphed that a portion of his supplies sent by rail had 
been delayed. 

As already stated, agents were immediately sent from here to investi- 
gate this complaint, and they reported that everything had gone forward. 
On the same day (the 11th) he spoke of many of his horses being broken 
down by fatigue. On the 12th he complained that the rate of supply was 
only " 150 horses per week for the entire army there and in front of 
Washington." I immediately directed the Quartermaster-General to 
inquire into this matter, and report why a larger supply was not furnished. 
Gen. Meigs reported on the 14th that the average issue of horses to Gen. 
McClellan's army in the field and in front of Washington for the previous 
six weeks, had been 1,450 per week, or 8,754 in all. In addition, that 
large number of mules had been supplied, and that the number of ani- 
mals with General McClellan's army on the Upper Potomac was over 
thirty-one thousand. He also reported that he was then sending to that 
army all the horses he could procure. 

On the 18th, Gen. McClellan stated, in regard to Gen. Meigs' report 
that he had filled every requisition for shoes and clothing, '' Gen. Meigs 
may have ordered these articles to be forwarded, but they have not reach- 
ed our depots ; and unless greater effort to insure prompt transmission is 
made by the department of which Gen. Meigs is the head, they might as 
well remain in New York or Philadelphia, so for as this army is concerned." 
I immediately called General Meigs' attention to this apparent neglect of 
his department. On the 25th he reported as the result of his investiga- 
tion that 48,000 pairs of boots and shoes had been received by the Quar- 
termaster of Gen. McClellan's army at Harper's Ferry, Frederick, and 
Hagersjtown ; that 20,000 pairs were at Harper's Ferry depot on the 
21st ; that 10,000 more were on their way, and 15,000 more ordered. Col. 
Ingals, Aid-de-Camp, and Chief Quartermaster to Gen. McClellan, tele- 
graphed on the 25th, ''The suffering for want of clothing is exaggerated, 
I think, and certainly might have been avoided by timely requisitions of 
regimental and brigade commanders." On the 26th he telegraphed to the 
Quartermaster-General that the clothing was not detained in cars at the 
depots. '' Such complaints are groundless. The fact is, the clothing 
arrives and is issued, but more is still wanted. I have ordered more than 
would seem necessary from any data furnished me, and I beg to remind 
you that you have always very promptly met my requisitions so far as 
clothing is concerned. Our depot is not at fault. It provides as soon as 
due notice is given. I foresee no time when an army of over 100,000 
men will not call for clothing and other articles." 

In regard to General McClellan's means of promptly communicating 
the wants of his army to me or to the proper Bureaus of the War Depart- 
ment, I report that, in addition to the ordinary mails, he has been in hourly 
communication with Washington by telegraph. 

It is due to Gen. Meigs that I should submit herewith a copy of a tele- 
gram received by him from Gen. McClellan. 

Very respectfully your obedient servant, 

H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief. 



18 

UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH. 

[Received Oct. 22, 1862—9:40 P. M.] 
From McClellan' s Headquarters. 

To Brigadier-General Meigs : — Your dispatch of this date is re- 
ceived. I have never intended, in any letter or dispatch, to make any ac- 
cusation against yourself or your Depai'tment for not furnishing or for- 
warding clothing as rapidly as it was possible for you to do. I believe that 
everything has been done that could be done in this respect. The idea 
that I have tried to convey was, that certain portions of the command were 
without clothing, and the army could not move until it was supplied. 

G. B. McCLELLAN, M. G. 

The removal of the commanding General of a large army, moving 
against a not distant enemy, is an event, of necessity pregnant with 
grave consequences for good or for evil, to the power ordering the 
removal, to the country, and to the General deprived of command. 
This threefold importance demands a minute investigation and scru- 
tiny of everything conducive to the development of the motives and 
reasons for so consequential proceedings. The publication of the two 
documents referred to, simultaneously with the news of the removal 
of McClellan, point them out as explaining the culminating cause, 
that justifies the all important step. 

General Halleck's letter of October 2S is written in reply to general 
interrogatories presented by Mr. Stanton on the day previous. Its 
extent, its completeness, the numerous facts contained therein, re- 
quiring references to books, and an extensive correspondence, the un- 
usual importance of the object for which, undoubtedly, it is intended, 
demanding great care and deliberation in its preparation — all this 
proves either, that General Halleck is a man of astonishing business 
qualification, who has all the minutiae of his extensive official transac- 
tions at his finger's. ends, and who posseses an enviable and unerring 
memory for executive details ; or that the document had been care- 
fully prepared, anterior to its date, to serve an important end in 
view. For the better understanding of the document in question, we 
give Mr. Edwin M. Stanton's letter containing the several interroga- 
tories to which General Halleck's forms the reply: 

EXHIBIT NO. 5. 

War Department, Washington City, Oct. 27, 1862. 

General : It has been publicly staged that the army under General 
McClellan has been unable to move during the fine weather of this fall, 
for want of shoes, clothing and other supplies. You will please report to 
this Department upon the following points : 

1. To whom and in what manner the requisitions for supplies to the 
army under General McClellan have been made since you assumed com- 



19 

mand as General-in-Chief, aud whether any requisition for supplies of any 
kind has since that time been made upon the Secretary of War, or com- 
munication had with him. except through you. 

2. If you, as General-in-Chief, have taken pains to ascertain the con- 
dition of the army in respect to supplies of shoes, clothing, arms, and 
other necessaries, and whether there has been any neglect or delay by any 
Department or Bureau, in filling the requisitions for supplies ; and what 
has been and is the condition of that army, as compared with other armies 
in respect to supplies. 

3. At what time after the battle of Antietam the orders to advance 
against the enemy were given to General McClellan, and how often have 
they been repeated. 

4. Whether, in your opinion, there has been any want in the army, 
under General McClellan, of shoes, clothing, arms, or other equipments 
or supplies, that ought to have prevented its advance against the enemy, 
when the order was given. 

5. How long was it after the orders to advance were given to General 
McClellan, before he informed you that any shoes or clothing were wanted 
in his army, and what are his means of communicating the wants of the 
army to you, or the proper bureau of the War Department. 

Yours truly, EDWIN M. STANTON, 

Secretary of War. 
Major-General Hallkck, General-in-Chief. 
Official. 

This letter to the General-in-Chief, for transparent reasons, was 
not given to the public when the reply thereto was ordered to be 
published : its later appearance in the Report of General Halleck, to 
the author of the letter, completes a chain of evidence which would 
have been imperfect without it. 

We see the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief of the 
army of the United States enter into a correspondence with each 
other for the purpose of asking questions and eliciting answers on 
matters about which the questioner ought to be by far better informed 
than the respondent ; evidently with the intention to convince the 
people that General McClellan, or some one on his behalf, has without 
actual cause, complained of want in the' army of the Potomac 
of shoes, clothing and other supplies ; and that this imaginary want 
has been used as a pretext why Hie army was not led into Virginia ; 
that General McClellan in not moving the army across the Potomac 
has become guilty of disobedience to orders, and that consequently 
the Administration had to deprive him of his command. 

As to the first part, we have already stated that the want existed, 
and we have enumerated some of the causes by which it had been 
produced* Let us see how the two high correspondents succeeded 

* General Pope's orders to General Banks, and General Porter's report 
to General Burnside, produced in Porter's court martial, fully confirms 
our statements. 



20 

in disproving by the pen what a hundred thousand soldiers by their 
pains and sufferings knew to be the truth. 

To Mr. Stanton's first question, the Secretary of War is 
the most competent person to give a satisfactory answer. To 
designate the persons to whom, and regulate the manner in 
which, requisitions for supplies are to be made by the com- 
manders of all armies ; to see that they are properly made and 
punctually supplied, is one of the most important duties of that 
functionary. The Secretary of War is in all countries considered, 
and frequently called the mother of the army, and the commander-in- 
chief the father ; the mother has to procure, prepare and serve out 
her supplies, that with the well clad, well fed, and well armed boys 
the father may protect against the enemy, the common fireside, 
our country. The part Mr. Stanton has undertaken to act as command- 
er-in-chief over the corpsjander Gens. McDowell, Banks and Fremont 
had brought disgrace and ruin over the country, and had filled tens 
of thousands of new dug graves while it lasted ; but it can never 
relieve the honorable Secretary of his .duties, after he had so mis- 
carried as a commander that even Mr. Lincoln could not endure it any 
longer, and had to stop him in his mad career. The chief Quarter- 
master, the chief Commissary, the chief of Ordnance, and all the 
other chiefs of Bureaus, are the subordinates, and perform every 
official act in behalf, and under the instructions of the Secretary of 
War, and in his name they report to him, who is just as much ac- 
countable for all their performances as the commanding general of 
an army is accountable for the official acts of any of his staff officers, 
which are all performed in his name and on his behalf, and re- 
ported to him. 

For the very purpose that the Secretary of War should be 
entirely relieved from all connection with and care of the strategical 
and purely military affairs of the army, General Halleck was ap- 
pointed General-in-Chief ; and the supervision and general direction 
of the strategical and military affairs vested in him. If, as Mr. Stan- 
ton tries to make us believe, the care for supplies, etc, had also been 
put upon General Halleck's shoulders, then it is clear that the latter 
would have to perform all the duties heretofore exercised by our Sec- 
retary of war, and that Mr. Stanton would occupy a perfect sinecure. 
The sentence attached to this first question is intended to shield the 
honorable Secretary from the consequences, which on account of his 
previous unpardonable interference with the purely military affairs 
of the army, the future may yet have in store for him. He desires 



21 

to prove that of late he has not interfered. The answer of General 
Halleck to this question shows that the communications of General 
McClellan with the Secretary of War have been carried on as they 
ought to be, through their respective representative quarter-masters' 
commissaries. It also states that no requisitions have been made 
upon him. 

Mr. Stanton's second question is in its first sentence, rather perplex- 
ing for General Halleck: — "Have you as Commander-in-Chief ta- 
ken pains to ascertain the condition of the army in regard to certain 
supplies V The General not being able to answer this delicate but di- 
rect question in the affirmative, does not answer it at all ; of which 
neglect the Secretary, for the present, does not seem to take any 
further notice, and slides immediately to the second section of his 
question ; to which he answers that on several occasions McClellan 
has telegraphed to him that his army was deficient in certain sup- 
plies, and that he (Halleck) had referred all these telegrams immedi- 
ately to the heads of Bureaus, to report— not to supply. Also that 
it was ascertained that in one instance the requisition for certain ar- 
ticles of clothing, tents et cetera, (which may mean, some very im- 
portant things) had to be got from Philadelphia ; that occasionally de- 
lays in forwarding supplies by rail had occurred, but that whenever 
notified of this — (by whom ?) — agents have been sent out to remove the 
difficulty — (on the railroad ?) — that delays have been less frequent, 
and of shorter duration than is usual with freight trains. Freight 
trains usually are slow but not sure ; supplies for the army ought to 
be rapid and sure : this sentence shows how incompetent are the 
heads and hands upon whom our soldiers rely for their necessaries.* 
That the armies in the West have been supplied less promptly than 
the army under McClellan may be correct, as far as the operations of 
those armies led them away from the navigable rivers ; but we be- 
lieve, in favor of General Hallock, that the slow and imperfect sup- 
plies of his army of the West, contributed to the fact that it took him 
as we have shown above, fifty-two days to move twenty miles, while 
McClellan's army in the same number of days fought ten battles, and 
marched several hundred miles ; and at another time commenced and 
completed a brilliant campaign in a fortnight. 



* All of this shows that the pains the Commander-in-Chief has taken 
to ascertain the condition of the army, have been taken at a great dis- 
tance from the army, in his comfortable office at Washington, and con- 
sisted in receiving many requests, which he referred to the heads of bu- 
reaus ; but that he did not go near that army. 



Mr. Stanton's third question is again of the character that the hon- 
orable Secretary ought to have answered it as well as anybody in the 
world, because in the telegram of October 6, annexed to General 
Halleck's report of Dec. 2d, which he erroneously called a peremp- 
tory Order, the General distinctly says : " I am directed to add that 
the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully concur with the 
President in these instructions. The honorable Secretary, therefore, 
must have had a copy of the telegram on file. 

Mr. Stanton's fifth and last question is a leading one. He wishes 
to have it understood that McClellan did not complain of want of 
shoes or clothing until after he was ordered to advance. General 
Halleck, in answer 5, meets the honorable Secretary halfway by refer- 
ring at once to October 7, a day or two after the so-called peremptory 
order ; but he has, in the lengthy answer No. 2, enumerated a long 
list of well-founded complaints made by McClellan, all previous to 
the Gth of October, and all of which the General-in-Chief has ex- 
plained to his own satisfaction. 

In his Gth reply General Halleck states in substance that McClel- 
lan telegraphed to him on Oct. 11 that his supplies by rail had been 
delayed, and that many of his horses had been broken down ; Oct. 
12th that he was supplied only at the rate of 150 horses per week- 
The first complaint brought the Agents, (Sec. 2,) on the road, 
but the delay existed and had to be endured by the army. The second 
complaint, caused undoubtedly by the enormous fatigue which the 
cavalry had to undergo in following General Stuart's horses in their 
raid in Pennsylvania and Maryland, which took place two days before 
the 12th, seems to have been entirely misunderstood by General 
Meigs, who represents to Halleck how many mules and animals are 
attached to the army, and gives an average furnished during 6 weeks; 
which brings it back into August, when Pope had not yet dis- 
tinguished himself. 

On the 18th of October, about thirty days after the battle of Antie- 
tam, McClellan says in substance, the supplies which General Meigs 
says he has sent have not reached our depot, and they might as well 
remain in New York or Philadelphia, so far as this army was con- 
cerned. Meigs, who is ordered on the 18th to report immediately, 
and who, in his brilliant offices in Washington, undisturbed by war ; 
from his way bills, and the return of his wagon guards and conductors 
under command of General Haupt, ought to be able to tell within 
a few hours when and what he has sent to the army, and if, when 
and where it has been delivered and receipted for, takes till the 25th 



23 

— as long time as it took McClellan to fight the seven battles on the 
peninsula ; half as long as the entire Maryland campaign — long after 
McClellan's army had entered Virginia, to make a report, that on the 
21st, three days after McClellan's complaint reached Washington, 
48,000 pair of boots and shoes had been delivered to the Quarter- 
master of McClellan's army, that 20,000 pair were lying at the 
Harper's Ferry Depot, not with McClellan'' 's army ; that 10,000 pair 
.were on their way — he does not know where ; and 15,000 pair were 
ordered — he does not say where and when. * 

As General Meigs, with the telegraph facilities referred to by General 
Halleck at his disposal, does not report that any shoes or boots had 
actually reached any depot of McClellan's army on or before October 
18th, it is safe to say that according to General Halleck's and Gen- 
eral Meigs's own statement, McClellan's army was four weeks after 
the battle of Antietam without proper shoes and boots — and that on 
the 25th of October, about half as many pair of shoes and boots as 
the army required had been delivered — and that when all the shoes 
and boots which General Meigs reports as on their way and as 
ordered, without any fixed time for delivery, (amounting to about 
90,000 pairs,) should one of these days reach the army of over 100,000 
men, that then some 10,000 of our brave soldiers will yet have to 
go barefooted. 

On the 25th of October, a week after McClellan's complaint of the 
18th, Colonel Ingal's Quartermaster-General to General McClellan 
telegraphs, " The suffering for want of clothing is exaggerated^ 

This officer of the Quartermaster (that is of the War Department) 
has no further consolation for the Secretary of War and for Mr. 
Halleck than to say, the suffering for the want of clothing is exag- 
gerated : not the want — the want he admits; he officially states that 
the want has been so great that it has caused suffering ; that the 
suffering still exists, but that on the 25th day of October, two days 
before, the Honorable Secretary, whose office is next door to that of 
the General-in-Chief, writes the interrogation to the latter, the suffer- 
ing is exaggerated — relieved but not removed. But how was it five 
weeks before the 25th day of October, immediately after Antietam, 
when that cry of suffering first startled the cottntry, and before, during 
thirty-five long days, urged by McClellan's again and again repeated 
demands, the Secretary of War, through the Chief Quartermaster, had 
gradually relieved some of the suffering, half-naked army ? 

Colonel Ingal's remarks, "that he foresees no time when an army 
of over 100,000 men will not call for clothing or other articles " is 



24 

correct. It expresses the experience made by all the armies in the 
world. But if this fact is known it should have the result it produces 
in other armies : it should beget the fostering care, which, under the 
guidance of the Secretaty of War, through his subordinates, causes a 
constant expedition of supplies to reach the army regularly at certain 
short intervals without extra requisition ; which, in other armies, 
makes the mother of the army, (who stays at home, and who has time 
to order, to examine, and to dispatch the necessary food, clothing, 
arms and ammunition,) the need of which she knows just as well as 
the General can tell her, makes the Secretary of War attend to all 
these matters, and thereby relieve the Commanding General and his 
Staff, who have always as much to attend to as they possibly can 
stand, from the additional care of asking and enumerating things 
which everybody knows the army regularly wants. 

General McOlellan's telegram, October 22d, to Quartermaster-Gen- 
eral Meigs, confirms, the assertion of all the subordinates of the Secre- 
tary of War, that each of them has done all they possibly could do to 
supply the army of the Potomac, to the contrary, notwithstanding, 
that certain portions of the army were then without clothing, and that 
the army could not move till it was supplied. 

We believe we have proved, from the official statement of the 
General-in-Chief himself, that the army of the Potomac has suffered 
from and was unable to move on account of want of shoes, clothing, 
and other supplies. We have declared that according to well estab- 
lished rules, it is in all countries the duty of the War Department to 
furnish supplies, and to regulate and supervise their transportation to 
the army, which, of course, cannot have any benefit of them till they 
have been delivered ; and that the Secretary of War, under whose 
orders all the different chiefs of bureaus are acting, is the officer 
responsible for any want of the most systematic, effective and per- 
fect regulation, and execution in all matters connected with the 
subsistence and supplies of the army. 

To attain the means of introducing system and punctuality in the 
transportation of supplies to our armies, the Secretary of War took, at an 
early day, possession of all the railroads connecting the several armies 
with the central depot — Washington — and established a bureau of con- 
struction and operation of United States Military railroads. To the 
Chief of this bureau the Secretary appointed General H. Haupt, who has 
his office at the War Department, immediately under the eyes of the hon- 
orable Secretary ; and acts, of course, under the general directions, and 
on behalf of that high officer. As the representative of the Secretary of 
AVar, he exercises supreme control over the railroads. 



25 

That there had been frequent and long delays in the transportation 
of the supplies, from the want of which the army under General Mc- 
Clellan was suffering ; that these delays were caused by the unsys- 
tematic, irregular, and ineffective management of this branch of the 
Department ; that these delays occurred and continued to take place 
from the moment the army of the Potomac entered Maryland, till 
after it had marched to Virginia ; that these delays, as well as the 
fact that they were caused by an imperfect and unsystematic, and 
therefore improper, management of the military railroads under the 
War Department, were well known to the Secretary of War and to 
the General-in-Chief of the army of the United States ; that conse- 
quently that part of the correspondence between the two last named 
high personages, 27th and 28th October, 1862, referring to the suffer- 
ing of McClellan's army, to its causes, and to the time when it ex- 
isted, has been carried on under false pretences, for the purpose of 
hiding their own neglect or incompetence from the public eye, and 
manufacturing false evidence against General McClellan : — All this is 
proved by the order of General Haupt, to whom General Halleck re- 
fers in -his letter October 28, to Mr. Stanton, addressed to the post, 
quartermasters, commissaries, officers and agents of military railroads, 
datedt 



War Department, U. S. Military Rail Roads, 
Washington, Nov. 10, 1862. 



To Post Quartermasters. Commissaries, Officers and Agents of Military 

Railroads : 

Gentlemen : The exceedingly critical condition of affairs compels me 
to address to you this circular, and to endeavor, with all the earnestness 
and force of language I can command, to explain some of the difficulties 
connected with military railroad transportation, and ask your co-operation 
and assistance in forwarding supplies. 

The army is dependent for its supplies upon a single-track railroad, in 
bad condition, without sidings of sufficient length, without wood, with a 
short supply of water, and with insufficient equipments. This road is 
taxed with an amount of business equal to the ordinary freights of a large 
city — an amount four times as large as it has ever before been called upon 
to accommodate, and twice as large as I reported to Gen. McClellan its 
capacity for transportation. 



f The fact that General Haupt in behalf of the Secretary of War, did 
not discover the remedy for the existing irregularities, and long and fre- 
quent delays — and did not instruct his subordinates how io obviate and 
overcome them till two days after General McClellan had transferred his 
command, so that the army could not derive any benefit from the improv- 
ed management of this branch of the War Department, while he com- 
manded it — all of this speaks for itself. The necessity of the numer- 
ous and important improvements introduced by this order proves the 
wretched condition the transportation service must have been in before. 



26 

There cannot be the most distant prospect of "keeping the army suppli- 
ed without constant uninterrupted movement of trains day and night. 
The delicate machinery of the road must not be deranged by any deten- 
tion or interference ; it must be directed by one mind, and one only. No 
one, not even myself, must derange the plans of the superintendent, vary 
his instructions, or direct his subordinates. Cars must be loaded and un- 
loaded with the utmost expedition possible, and kept in motion. Conve- 
nience must not be consulted ; unload the cars anywhere, and move their 
contents afterwards, or issue where they lie ; do not delay or require cars 
to be shifted, or trains moved, simply to avoid inconvenience. Railroad 
employees must be civil ; they must do anything in their power to accom- 
modate officers if it will not delay trains, but if it will cause delay, their 
orders are peremptory ; they must decline, Do not quarrel with them, or 
refuse to unload cars because they are not in the most convenient posi- 
tions ; in doing this you not only prevent the forwarding of supplies, but 
derange movements dependent upon the prompt return of cars. If em- 
ployees are uncivil or unaccommodating, report the facts to me. * * 
* * Again I say that if the army is to be supplied, the condition 
which, in its importance' transcends all others, is that no delay, not even 
a minute, should be allowed to occur in unloading cars, if it can be avoid- 
ed. Movement, unceasing movement in the trains, is our only salvation ; 
without it the army must retreat or starve. Would that I could express 
its importance as I felt it. * * * * The Secretary of War and 
the commanding General of the army fully understand and appreciate the 
fact, that the operations of a railroad must be directed by one mind*, even 
if it should not be a superior one. They have declared that my control 
over the railroads is "supreme," and that "no military officer has any 
authority to interfere with it." But I do not wish to exercise "authority." 
I prefer to appeal to the patriotism and good sense of those whose busi- 
ness brings them in contact with the railway managers, and believe that 
the appeal will not be in vain, when I ask their assistance and co-opera- 
tion. * * * * * I hope that I have made myself understood, 
and that officers of all grades will receive these explanations in the spirit 
in which they are given. 

Agents on United States military railroads, at each depot station, are 
required to report daily to the superintendent, as follows : 

1. The exact time of arrival of each train, and the numbers of the cars 
which it contains, 

2. The force employed to unload it. 

3. If there was a sufficient force to unload each and every car at the 
same time. 

4. The time actually occupied in unloading. 

5. The name of the officer or officers who superintended the unloading. 

G. All cases of detention to cars, engines or trains, and their causes. 

The time occupied in unloading cars should be employed by the engi- 
neer and conductor, whenever practicable, in procuring wood and water, 
and in doing whatever else may be necessary to permit an immediate re- 
turn. 

H. HAUPT, Brigadier-General, 
In charge of construction and operation of United States Military Rail- 
roads, 

Id section three of the letter of October 28th, General Halleck 
tries to produce the impression that McClellan had been guilty of 
disobedience to his orders. If he does not succeed, it is not for want 
of artful phraseology. 



27 

If, as he' desires to make it appear, General Halleck had any right 
whatever to give orders to General McClellan, after what had taken 
place between the defeat of Mr. Pope, and the preservation of the 
administration bv McClellan, from captivity by General Lee — if he 
was General-in-Chief over McClellan — it was his duty to make the 
general plan of the new campaign, and order McClellan to carry it 
out. In that case he did' neither understand nor do his duty when 
he asked McClellan for hforrnation of his intended movements. He 
would not have been in a position of finding that he purposed to op- 
crate from Harper's Ferry , and to urge Jam to cross the river at 
once, but he would have fixed the place whence, and at what time 
the operations were to be commenced, and would have ordered the 
execution thereof. He would in that case have been able to say in 
his closing sentence, "I ordered him peremptorily to cross" and he 
would have been bound, in duty to the army, in duty to his country 
and in duty to his high office as General in Chief, to have General 
McClellan at once put under arrest, and .tried before a court mar- 
tial on the grave charge "of disobedience of orders to attack the ene- 
my," the punishment of which is one of the most severe. Knowing, 
of course, that the immediate attack was necessary for the welfare of 
the army and of the country — knowing the dangers that might follow 
even a short delay in the execution of this movement, by his keep- 
ing silent "for over three weeks,! — andjby not taking official action in 
this matter of highest importance until he had received a general in- 
terrogatory from the honorable Secretary of War ; (which silence 
costs the country tens of millions) General Halleck, in our opinion, 
has himself become guilty of willful neglect of duty, for which 
in every other army in the civilized world, he would be court 
martialed. He is even not entitled to the palliation of his offence, on 
the plea of friendly sentiments towards a distinguished brother officer, 
highest in rank in the army, who has always deserved well of his 
country ; because throughout these entire transactions we have been 
unable to discover any but the most unfriendly and unsoldierly senti- 
ments on behalf of the General-in-Chief towards General McClellan. 



Jit is well known that on the 28th day of October, when General Hal- 
leck made that statement, the army of the Potomac had crossed according 
to Halleck's report to the Secretary of War, October 26, and was at Up- 
perville and Snickersville in the Blue Ridge. 



28 

The telegraphic dispatch of Oct. 6th, 1862, from General Halleck 
to McClellan reads : 

" I am instructed to telegraph you as follows : The President directs 
that you cross * * . * * It is necessary that the plan of 
your operations be positively determined upon before orders are given for 
building bridges and repairing railroads. * * * I am 

directed to add that the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully 
concur with the President in these instructions. 

" H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief." 

General Halleck, in his Report to the Secretary of War, Dec. 2d., 
1862, of McClellan says : 

" What caused him to change his views, or what his plan of campaign 
was, I am ignorant, for about this time he ceased to communicate with me 
in regard to his operations, sending his reports direct to the President. 
On the 5th ultimo I received the written order of the President relieving 
General McClellan. and placing General Burnside in command of the 
Army of the Potomac." 

In his examination by the Commission to investigate the disastrous 
battle of Fredericksburg, General Halleck, under oath, testified, that 
all the troops in Washington were "under command of General 
McClellan, that he gave his orders direct to the commanding officers 
at Washington, with one single exception that no troops should be 
moved from the command at Washington until I was notified by 
General McClellan or the commanding officer here (Washington)." 
Which statement means, that besides the troops in Virginia and 
Maryland, those in and around Washington were also under direct 
command of General McClellan. " General Burnside, I was told, 
held the same position when he relieved him." ( The General made 
this statement to show that he could not be held responsible for any 
action or omission in the matter under investigation,) 

In September last, Avhen General McClellan left Washington for 
the Maryland campaign, he entrusted the command of the forces in 
the fortifications around that city to General Banks ; the latter issued 
an order to his army stating, that by order of Major-General McClel- 
lan he assumed command, &c. 

From all these facts, and from the statements in section 3 of Gene- 
ral Halleck's letter of October 28th, we come to the conclusion that 
on the 1st of September last when President Lincoln, forced by abso- 
lute necessity, requested General McClellan to resume command, the 
latter, as a condition sine qua non, demanded that henceforward no 
person whatever, but in particular not the Secretary of War or the 
General-in-Chief, should have any right to interfere with, or to give 
orders, or to control him and the armies under his command, or their 



29 

operations, and that all necessary deliberations, consultations and com- 
munications regarding his armies and their movements, should be 
direct from the President to the General and vice versa, and that to 
the President of the United States alone he would be accountable. 
The President accepted this condition, and pledged himself strictly 
to adhere to it ; the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief had 
to and did submit to it. 

The brilliant campaign in Maryland would have been impossible 
had any one interfered with McClellan. 

'As neither the Secretary of War nor the General-in-Chief had, per 
special agreement, any right to give orders or instructions to General 
McClellan, it is clear that, as these two officers failed to disprove the 
suffering of the army from want of shoes, clothing, &c, so they have 
failed to prove their insinuation that General McClellan had been 
guilty of disobedience to their orders. 

The imminent personal danger removed from the portals of the 
White House and the War Department, the Secretary of War and 
the General-in-Chief began to feel uneasy and uncomfortable under 
the agreement in question, and the President grew less exact in the 
fulfillment of his promise. 

The General-in-Chief was curious to know McClellan's plan for the 
next campaign, and was not let into the secret because McClellan and 
the country had almost been ruined when in March last, yielding to 
official pressure, he explained his plan, whereupon it became imme- 
diately known to the rebel General Johnson.* 

The General-in-Chief thereupon urged McClellan to decide between 
two plans — either of them bad, but they alone appear within the 
range of General Halleck's strategical mind. General McClellan did 
not enter into any correspondence with him, and his curiosity was not 
satisfied. 

On the 6th of October the Geueral-in-Chief caused himself to be 
instructed by the President to telegraph to General McClellan a most 
remarkable dispatch. 

Washington, D. C. ; October 6, 1862. 
Major-General, McClellan : I am instructed to telegraph you as 
follows : The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give bat- 
tle to the enemy or drive him South. Your army must move now while 
the roads are good. If you cross the river between the enemy and Wash- 
ington, and cover the latter by your operation, you can be reinforced 
with 30.000 men. If you move up the valley of the Shenandoah, not more 

* " Army of the Potomac." By Prince Joinville, 



30 

than 12,000 or 15,000 can be sent to 1 you. The President advises the 
interior line between Washington and the enemy, but does not order it. 
He is very desirous that your army move as soon as possible. You will 
immediately report what line you adopt and when you intend to cross the 
river. Also to what point the reinforcements are to be sent. It is neces- 
sary that the plan of your operations be positively determined on before 
orders are given for building bridges and repairing railroads. I am 
directed to add that the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully 
concur with the President in these instructions. 

H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief. 

" The President directs that you cross the Potomac and give battle 
to the enemy or drive Mm South ; your army must now move while 
the roads are good." This reads almost as if a definite plan of the cam- 
paign had been decided upon by the President, and that the execu- 
tion thereof had been ordered ; but the balance of the dispatch contains 
numerous qnestions, suggestions and propositions, all intended to 
draw from McClellan a disclosure of his actual plan for the campaign, 
and all referring exclusively to the two plans previously alluded to 
by the General-in-Chief, of which the President orders General Hal-, 
leek to say, " that he advises but does not orde^r it." (This latter 
would have been contrary to agreement with General McClellan.) 
" It is necessary that the 2>lan of your ojieraticns be positively deter- 
mined upon before orders are given for building bridges and repair- 
in^ railroads" shows the endeavor to learn McClellan's plan, as 
well as that the latter had requested bridges and railroads to be 
repaired ; a point, the importance of which we shall hereafter take 
occasion to explain. 

" 1 am directed to add that the Secretary of War and the General- 
in-Chief fully concur with the President in these instructions." This 
closing sentence shows that the President submits his opinion in the 
matter first to Mr. Stanton and General Halleck, and asked for their- 
concurrence ; this secured he directs General Halleck to communicate 
thase views to General McClellan, and to tell him that the President 
has asked Mr. Stanton's and Mr. Halleek's views, and that the 
Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief fully concur with the 
President. 

This roundabout way to secure to the Commander of the army of 
the Potomac the benefit of the opinion of the Secretary of War and 
the General-in-Chief on the President's strategical suggestions, proves 
conclusively, we think, that both these high officials, by special agree- 
ment, were not permitted to communicate their views officially and 
direct to General McClellan. 

To call the contradictory suggestions and the suggestive contradic- 



31 

tions, forming the substance of this dispatch instructions, as the Gen- 
eral-in-Chief does call them, is certainly a bold stretch of imagination 
—imagination is the most dangerous virtue in a general — but even 
this he exceeds when he refers to this telegram as a peremptory 
order. This dispatch constituted so direct a violation of stipulations 
made by General McOlellan, that from that time the General ceased to 
have any further communication with either of the two concurring 
personages. 

The documentary evidence from which we have drawn all the 
conclusions heretofore arrived at, it will be observed has all been " ex 
parte:' all of it having been furnished to us exclusively by Edwin M. 
Stanton, Secretary of War, and H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief of 
the armies of the United States, who, on the 27th and 2t8h day of 
October last, entered into an exchange of notes for the purpose of 
demonstrating to the people that there existed good cause for the 
removal, on the 5th day of November, of Major-General McClellan 
from the command of the army of the Potomac. In this they have 
completely failed, and they have, by their own written statements. 
proved the utter mismanagement of the War Department and the 
ruinous consequences therefrom to the army and to the country. 

Who can tell how much more disgusting and criminal then- 
conduct will appear one of these days, when the self-sacrificing, patri- 
otic general, whose true greatness made him the object of the hatred- 
the jealousy and the intrigues of those unprincipled men, may con- 
descend to open his lips and permit publicity to be given to the' 
damning evidence against them which he undoubtedly holds in his 
possession 1 

The President, after this, was more and more pressing in his de_ 
mand that General McClellan should cross the Potomac, and McClel. 
Ian was forced to choose between two evils : either to resign his 
command, which would have been inconsistent with good discipline 
and would have set a bad example ; or, after having tried with all the 
arguments at his control to dissuade the President from the execution 
of, under existing circumstances, so unstrategical a movement, to" act 
as he did in March, 1862— to perform his duty in the best possible 
manner. 

The sentence in General Halleck's dispatch at the order of the 
President, October 6, " it is necessary that the plan of your operations 
he fully determined upon before orders are given for building bridges 
a-il repairing railroads; 1 seems to us to show that while McClellan 
still hoped to succeed in dissuading the President from the fatal plan 



32 

to cross the Potomac at once, he was making all necessary prelimi- 
nary preparations for the execution of the only sound strategy, the 
moment the President should have assented thereto. He wanted 
railroads repaired to move his army rapidly to the place of embarka- 
tion, say Alexandria, and bridges built for the same purpose ; still he 
would not disclose his plan so that the enemy should know it. After 
full consideration of all the facts before us, we have no doubt that 
whenever General McClellan shall one of these days think it proper 
to permit his own plan for the fall campaign of 1862 to be published, 
it will, in all its principal points, coincide with the plan described in 
detail by us, and for which we have given reasons which, in our 
opinion, cannot well be disputed. 

When the army of the Potomac had crossed the river near Berlin, 
General McClellan made his reports direct to the President ; this of 
coarse vexed the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief continu- 
ally. Their influence over the President increased in equal ratio with 
the distance from Washington to the headquarters of the army of the 
Poto mac ; it was supreme on the -5th of November, when General 
Halleck succeeded in receiving the written order of the President 
relieving General McClellan and placing General Burnside in com- 
mand of the army of the Potomac. 

The Emperor of Russia, the most despotic military monarch in 
the world, would not deprive of command the highest officer in his 
army, who only two months before, at the head of 150,000 men, had 
saved his Government from destruction by an invading army, with- 
out having made known to the army the guilt of theGeneral against 
whom he had taken so important a step. 

The President of the United States has, on the 5th day of Novem- 
ber, deprived of command Major-General McClellan, the highest 
ranked officer in the United States army, who in September had saved 
him and his Administration from the rebel General Lee. 

On the first day of December the President sent a very long mes- 
sage to the representatives of the people, wherein want of space for 
a word of acknowledgment for their heroic devotion to the country's 
cause, to the army of half a million of citizen soldiers, compels him 
to refer the representatives, in all matters concerning the army, to the 
annual Report of the Secretary of War, the business of whose de- 
partment exclusively comprises the army. The honorable Secretary's 
report, although rather brief, contains k some valuable suggestions on 
the cultivation of Sea Island cotton, and on the question whether a 
liberated African is likely to establish his domicile North or South. 



33 

In matters concerning our Eastern armies the Secretary abstains from 
reporting, what, he says, the President knows as well as he does; on- 
the removal of General McClellan he keeps a profound silence, and 
refers the President for all other matters, to the report made to him, 
the Secretary of War, by the General-in-Chief. 

The General-in-Chief's Report to the Secretary of War is full. It 
contains details of great variety and interest ; it refers to the corres- 
pondence between him and the Secretary of War, and in some respects 
it is explanatory thereto ; but the General who, as we have seen, is 
not reluctant to report to the Secretary of War matters which the 
latter must know better than the General himself, does not even hint 
at what General McClellan has been guilty of, to deserve to be 
deprived of his command in the face of the enemy, a measure which 
the General well knew caused great dissatisfaction in the army as 
well as among the people at large. 

The Secretary of War as well as the General-in-Chief, as we have 
seen, are both hostile to General McClellan, and have gone far out of 
their way for the purpose of injuring that General. The President's 
acts prove clearly that his sentiments toward General McClellan were 
congenial with those of Mr. Stanton and Mr. Halleck. No person 
can have the least doubt that, had it been in the power of the Presi- 
dent, the Secretary of War, or the Commander-in-Chief, to assign 
even a half plausable excuse for the great wrong they had^ done to 
the General and to the army of the Potomac, they would willingly 
have published it. 

The army has a right to know the reason why this removal took 
place. The silence on the subject in the Message, and in both the 
Reports, is most conclusive evidence that the Commander-in-Chief did 
not duly consider the welfare of the army in this unjustifiable military 
measure. 

What an undisputable testimony as to the far-seeing intelli- 
gence, professional excellence and patriotism of General McClellan. 
What a triumph of the rectitude of his conduct, under the most provok- 
ing treatment and bad faith, on behalf of those whom naturally he 
had to consider his cooperaters and most reliable supporters in the 
energetic and successful conduct of the war. The Commander-in- 
Chief, the Secretary of War and the General-in-Chief, however eager 
they are to do so, neither by fair nor by foul means, can fasten a single 
censurable act or word upon General McClellan. 

Notwithstanding the silence with which the General-in-Chief passes 
the reasons for the removal of General McClellan, his Report to the 
3 



34 

Secretary of War, nevertheless, throws a flood of light on the opera- 
tions of the army during the past year. In connection with some 
others, incidentally made puhlic, it is the first document which 
officially sets at rest all doubts as to the men and measures that 
have prevented the operations of the army to result in the overthrow 
of the rebellion, and in the termination of this unholy war. To re- 
view the operations in the order in which they actually follow each 
other, we have to lay aside General Halleck's report, to return to it 
very soon. 

Major-General McDowell had demanded a Court of Enquiry as 
to his conduct after the first battle of Bull Hun. During the 
progress of these investigations there was presented in evidence 
elicited in the cross-examination — 

1st. A letter of instructions by Major-General McClellan to the 
military Governor of the District of Columbia, Brigadier-General 
James S. Wadsworth, dated March 16, 1862. 

2nd. A letter of instructions by Major-General McClellan to Major 
General Banks, commanding fifth corps, army of the Potomac, dated 
March 16, 1862. 

These two documents give a most complete description of the dis- 
positions made, and the means provided by the commander of the 
army of the Potomac, for the protection, and if need be, for the de- 
fence of the national capital, with its distant surroundings. They 
are master-pieces of clearness, of completeness, and of precision in 
strategical explanations and military orders, and they show that over 
70,000 men, of all arms, had been put in and around the fortifications 
and strongly entrenched at Manassas and other principal points along 
the various lines of approach, to keep in check and repulse any force 
which might venture across the Rappahannock. So plain is the des- 
ignation of the various strategical points selected, so precise the num- 
ber of men, and the proportion in which they shall be composed of 
the various armies, that there exists no possibility for any person in 
sound mind, with only half a military idea, to misunderstand them or 
doubt their efficiency. 

On the 1st day of April, 1862, when General McClellan embarked 
for the Peninsula, he sent to Brigadier-General L. Thomas, Adjutant- 
General U. S. Army, with the President and the Secretary of War, 
for the purpose of laying the same before the Secretary of War, a full 
and complete explanation of the disposition he had made, and of the 



35 

number of troops designated for every commander, and to what 
place.* 

* Headquarters, Army op the Potomac, ) 
March 16, 1862. \ 
Brigadier- General James S. Wadsworth, Military Governor of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia : 

Sir : The command to which you have been assigned, by instruction of 
the President, as Military Governor of the District of Columbia, embraces 
the geographical limits of the district, and will also include the city of 
Alexandria. 

The defensive works south of the Potomac, from the Occoquan to Diffi- 
cult Creek, and the part of Fort Washington. I enclose a list of the 
works and defences embraced in these limits. General Banks will com- 
mand at Manassas Junction, with the divisions of Williams and Shields, 
composing the Fifth Army corps, but you should, nevertheless, exercise 
vigilance in your front, carefully guard the approaches in that quarter, 
and maintain the duties of advanced guards. You will use the same pre- 
cautions on either flank. All troops not actually needed for the police- of 
Washington and Georgetown, for the garrisons north of the Potomac, and 
for other indicated special duties, should be removed to the south side of 
the river. In the centre of your front you should post the main body of 
your troops, in proper proportions, at suitable distances, towards your 
right and left flanks. Careful patrols will be made to thoroughly scour 
the country in front, from right to left. 

It is specially enjoined upon you to maintain the forts and their arma- 
ments in the best possible order, to look carefully after the instruction 
and discipline of their garrisons, as well as all other troops under your 
, command, and by frequent and rigid inspection to insure the attainment 
of these ends. 

The care of the railways, canals, depots, bridges and ferries within the 
above-named limits will devolve upon you, and you are to insure their 
security and provide for their protection by every means within your 
power. You will also protect the depots of the public stores and the 
transit of the stores to the troops in actual service. 

By means of patrols you will thoroughly scour the neighboring country 
south of the eastern branch, and also on your right, and you will use every 
possible precaution to intercept mails, goods, and persous passing unau- 
thorized to the enemy's lines. 

. , Th . e necessit y of maintaining good order within your limits, and espec- 
ially in the capital of the nation, cannot be too strongly enforced. You 
will forward and facilitate the movement of all troops destined for the 
active part of the army of the Potomac, and especially the transits of de- 
tachments to their proper regiments and corps. 

The charge of all new troops arriving in Washington, and of all troops 
temporarily there, will devolve upon you. You will form them into pro- 
visional brigades, promote their instruction and discipline, and facilitate 
their equipments. Report all arrivals of troops, their strength, composi- 
tion and equipment by every opportunity. Besides the regular report 
and returns which you will be required to render to the Adjutant- General 
of the Army, you will make to these headquarters a consolidated moraine: 
report of your command every Sunday morning, and a monthly return on 
the first day of each month. 

The foregoing; instructions are communicated by command of Maior- 
General McClellan. J 



36 

General McClellan made this masterly disposition of the forces 
specified by him ; issued so complete and detailed instructions to the 
commanding officers, and presented so comprehensive a resume of all 

Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, ) 
March 16, 1862. ) 

To Major- General N. P. Banks, commanding Fifth corps, Army of the 

Potomac : 

Sir : You will post your command in the vicinity of Manassas, intrench 
yourself strongly and throw cavalry pickets well out to the front. Your 
first care will be the rebuilding of the railway from Washington to Man- 
assas, and to Strasburg, in order to open your communications with the 
valley of the Shenandoah. As soon as the Manassas Gap Railway is in 
running order, intrench a brigade of infantry— say four regiments, with 
two batteries — at or near the point where that railway crosses the Shenan- 
doah. Something like two regiments of cavalry should be left in that 
vicinity to occupy Winchester, and thoroughly scour the country South 
of the rail way, and up the Shenandoah Valley, as well as through Chester 
Gap, which might, perhaps be occupied advantageously by a detachment 
of infantry, well intrenched. Block houses should be built at all the rail- 
way bridges occupied by grand guard, Warrenton Junction, or Warren- 
ton itself, and also some still more advanced points on the Orange and 
Alexandria Railroad, as soon as the railroad bridges are repaired. 

Great activity should be observed by the cavalry. Besides the two 
regiments at Manassas, another regiment of cavalry will be at your dispo- 
sal, to scout towards the Occoquan, and probably a fourth towards Lees- 
burg. To recapitulate, the most important points that should engage your 
attention are as follows : 

First — A strong force, well intrenched, in the vicinity of Manassas, per- 
haps even Centreville, and another force. A brigade also well intrenched 
near Strasburg. 

Second — Block houses at railway bridges. 

Third — Constant employment of cavalry well to the front. 

Fourth — Grand guards at Warrenton, and in advance as far as the Rap- 
pahannock if possible, 

Fifth — Great care to be exercised to obtain full and early information as 
to the enemy. 

Sixth — The general object is to cover the line of the Potomac and 
Washington. 

The foregoing is communicated by order of Major-General McClellan. 

Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, 
Steamer Commodore, April 1, 1862. 
To Brigadier- General L. Thomas, Adjutant- General, U. S. A. : 

General : I have to request that you will lay the following communica- 
tion before the Honorable Secretary of War. The approximate numbers 
and positions of the troops left near, and in rear of the Potomac are about 
as follows : 

General Dix has, after guarding the railroads under his charge, suffi- 
cient troops to give him five thousand men for the defence of Baltimore, 
and 1,988 available for the Eastern shore. Annapolis, &c. Fort Delaware 
is very well garrisoned by about four hundred men. The garrisons of the 
forts around Washington amount to ten thousand men, other disposable 



37 

these to the Secretary of War, in the full belief that the words 
in the President's War Order, March 11, 1862,t meant what they 

troops now with General Wadsworth being about eleven thousand four 
hundred men. The troops employed in guarding the various railroads in 
Maryland amount to some three thousand three hundred and fifty-nine 
men. These it is designed to relieve, being old regiments, by dismounted 
cavalry, and to send them forward to Manassas. General Abercrombie 
occupies Warrenton with a force Avhich, including Col. Geary's at White 
Plains,, and the cavalry to be at their disposal, will amount to some seven 
thousand seven hundred and eighty men, with twelve pieces of artillery. 

I have the honor to request that all the troops organized for service in 
Pennsylvania and New York, and in any of the Eastern States, may be 
ordered to Washington. This force I should be glad to have sent at once 
to Manassas — four thousand men from General Wadsworth to be ordered 
to Manassas. These troops, with the railroad guards above alluded to, 
will make up a force under the command of General Abercrombie to some- 
thing like eighteen thousand six hundred and thirty-nine men. It is my 
design to push General Blenker from Warrenton upon Strasburg. He 
should remain at Strasburg long enough to allow matters to assume a defi- 
nite form in that region before proceeding to his ultimate destination. 
The troops in the valley of the Shenandoah will thus — including Blenker' s 
division, ten thousand and twenty-eight strong, with twenty-four pieces of 
artillery ; Banks' Fifth corps, which embraces the command of General 
Shields, nineteen thousand six hundred and eighty-seven strong, with 
forty-one guns, some three thousand six hundred and fifty-three disposa- 
ble cavalry, and the railroad guard, about twenty-one hundred men — 
amount to about thirty-five thousand four hundred and sixty-seven men. 

It is designed to relieve General Hooker by one regiment — say eight 
hundred and fifty men — being, with five hundred cavalry, thirteen hundred 
and fifty men on the lower Potomac. To recapitulate : At Warrenton 
there is to be seven thousand seven hundred and eighty ; at Manassas, say 
ten thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine ; in the Shenandoah valley, thir- 
ty-five thousand four hundred and sixty-seven ; on the Lower Potomac, 
thirteen hundred and fifty — in all, fifty-five thousand four hundred and 
fifty-six. There would then be left for the garrisons in front of Washing- 
ton and under General Wadsworth some eighteen thousand men, exclusive 
of the batteries, under instructions. The troops organizing or ready for 
service in New York, I learn, will probably number more than four thou- 
sand. These should be assembled at Washington, subject to disposition 
where their services may be most needed. I am, very respectfully, your 
obedient servant, 

GEO. B. McCLELLAN, Major General Commanding. 

THE PRESIDENT'S WAR ORDER No. 3. 
f Executive Mansion, Washington, March 11, 1862. 
Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head 
of the army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered, is relieved from the 
command of the other military departments, he maintaining command of 
the department of the Potomac. Ordered, further, that the departments 
now under the respective commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, 
together with so much of that under General Buell as lies west of a north 
and south line, drawn through Knoxville, Tenn., be consolidated and des- 
ignated the Department of the Mississippi, and that, until otherwise 



38 

expressed ; and that the Secretary of War, during McClellan's ab- 
sence on the Peninsula, would see to it that his orders and instruc- 
tions were punctually executed. Limited means of transportation 
had compelled General McClellan to leave some .45,000 men, under 
McDowell, and not included in the 70,000 men enumerated, and 
left under command of Generals Banks and Wadsworth respectively ; 
near Alexandria, to embark on the return of the vessels in which the 
rest of the army had gone to the Peninsula. General McDowell's corps 
was selected as the one to bring up the rear, because, says General 
McClellan he wanted to use this corps as a unit for a movement in 
the rear of the enemy's fortifications on the left bank of the York 
river. 

McClellan had hardly proceeded a few miles on his way to For- 
tress Monroe when, presto ! presto ! the President and the Secretary 
of War overthrew McClellan's plans completely, and without notifying 
him of it, prevent General McDowell from following the army of the 
Potomac to the Peninsula ; detached General Banks and General 
Wadsworth from his command, forming an independent department for 
each of them, and thereby with one foul blow crippled the army un- 
der McClellan on the Peninsula, by depriving it of about one-third of 
its numerical strength ; prevented the proper disposition of troops for 
the protection of the City of Washington, and destroyed the most 
perfect strategical combination for the capture of Richmond, and the 
termination of the war. 

On the 9th day of April! President Lincoln accuses McClellan of 
having omitted and neglected certain military arrangements, while 

ordered, Major-General Halleck have command of said department. Or- 
dered, also, that the country west of the Department of the Potomac, 
and east of the Department of the Mississippi, be a military department 
to be called the Mountain Department, and that the same be commanded 
by Major-General Fremont. That all the commanders of Departments, 
after the receipt of this order by them respectively, report severally and 
directly to the Secretary of War, and that prompt, full, and frequent 
reports will.be expected of all and each of them. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

f Washington, April 9, 1862. 
To Major- General McClellan : 

My Dear Sir : Your dispatches, complaining that you are not properly 
sustained, while they do not offend me, pain me very much. Blenker's 
Division was withdrawn before you left here, and you know the pressure 
under which I did it, and as I thought, acquiesced in it, certainly not with- 
out reluctance. After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 unor- 
ganized men without a field battery, were all you designed should be left 
for the defence of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this, 



39 

McClellan's report, April 1st, to Adjutant-General Thomas, not only- 
states, all the President declares neglected, to have heen done ; but 
while the specified number of men, of horses, and of artillery, left at 
the various places designated, and the entire report show the perfect 
manner in which the force of 73,400 men, including 77 pieces of 
artillery have been disposed to protect Washington and its approaches, 
all of which is corroborated by General William Barry's letter,* Dec. 
10, 1862. 



even, was to go to General Hooker's old position. General' Banks' corps, 
once designed for Manassas Junction, was divided and tied up on the line 
of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave that position without 
again exposing the Upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 

This presented, or would present, when McDowell and Sumner should 
be gone, a great temptation for the enemy to turn back from the Rappa- 
hannock and sack Washington. My explicit directions that Washington, 
sustained by the judgment of all the commanders of corps, should be left 
secure, had been entirely neglected. It was precisely this that drove me 
to detain McDowell. I do not forget that I was satisfied with your ar- 
rangement to leave Banks at Manassas Junction. But when that arrange- 
ment was broken up, and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was 
not satisfied. I was constrained to substitute something for it myself. 
And now allow me to ask you, do you really think I could permit the line 
from Richmond via Manassas Junction to this city, to be entirely open, 
except what resistance could be presented by less than 20,000 unorganized 
troops ? This a question which the country will not allow me to evade. 

There is a curious mystery about the number of troops now with you. , 
I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying that you had over 100,000 with you. 
I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a statement taken, as he 
said, from your own returns, making 108,000 then with you, and en route 
to you. You now say you will have but 85,000 when all en route to you 
shall have reached you. How can this discrepancy of 35.000 be account- 
ed for? As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing pre- 
cisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that command 
was away. 

And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike 
a blow. lam powerless to help. This you will do me the justice to 
remember, I was always opposed to going down the Bay in search of a 
field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, as only shifting and not sur- 
mounting a difficulty ; that we would find the same enemy and the same 
or equal intrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to note 
— is noting now — that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched 
enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. 

I beg leave to assure you that I have never written or spoken to you in 
greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain 
you so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can. But you 
must act. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln. 



* Headquarters, Inspector of Artillery, ) 
Washington, Dec. 10, 1862. $ 
Major- General McClellan, United States Army : 

General : It having been stated in several public prints, and in a 
speech of Senator Chandler of Michigan, in his place in the United States 



40 

This letter of the President, in our opinion, solves the mystery of 
the complete failure of the campaign of 1862. 

Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, after the disaster of Bull Run 
the first, said he ought to have heen cashiered hy President Lincoln, 
for having proved himself a coward, in yielding to the pressure 
brought to bear upon him, having, against his own better judgment, 
permitted McDowell to advance on Manassas. When he left Wash- 
ington for Europe, the veteran hero's last advice to General McClel- 
lan was, "Never permit any power to override your own well consid- 
ered opinions." 

General Scott was weighed down by old age, an invalid, from 
wounds received in his country's battles, confined to a sickbed, when 
he yielded. Never before had he planned a grand campaign with hia 
headquarters in Washington ; besieged by the Congress of the United 
States. He had never had to deal with so many strategists by intu- 
ition. 

Mr. Lincoln had the experience of General Scott before him ; he 
had seen the old hero shed tears of sorrow and self-condemnation for 
his cowardice, in the face of his country's enemies. He had McOlellan 
commended to him by General Scott, in the strongest terms, to rely 

Senate quoting what he stated to be a portion of the testimony of Briga- 
dier General Wadsworth, Military Governor of Washington, before the 
joint Senate and House committee ''on the conduct of the War," that 
Major-General McClellan had left an insufficient force for the defence of 
Washington, and '■'■not a gun on wheels" I have to contradict this charge 
as follows, from the official reports made at the time to me (the Chief of 
the Army of the Potomac), and now in my possession, by the command- 
ing officer of the Army of the light artillery troops left in camp, in the 
city of Washington, by your order. It appears that the following named 
field batteries were left : 

Battery C, First New York artillery, Captain Barnes, two guns. 
Battery K, First New York artillery, Captain Crounse, six guns. 
Battery D, Second New York artillery, Captain Robinson, six guns. 
Ninth New York Independent battery, Captain Shertonty, six guns. 
Sixteenth New York Independent battery, Captain Locke. 
Battery A, Second battalion New York Artillery, Captain Hogan, six 
guns. 

Battery B, Second battalion New York Artillery, Captain McMahon, six 
guns. 

Total, seven batteries, thirty-two guns. 

With the exception of a few horses, which could have been procured 
from the Quartermaster's Department in a few hours, the batteries were 
all fit for immediate service, excepting the Sixteenth New York battery, 
which, having been previously ordered on General Wadsworth) 's applica- 
tion to report to him for special service, was unequipped with guns or 
horses. Lam, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

William F. Barry. 
Brigadier-General Inspector of Artillery, United States Army. 



41 

upon. He had seen in what masterly manner he had organized a 
large army. 

McClellan, as General-in-Chief; in all matters concerning the move- 
ments of the army, was his only constitutional adviser. 

With the vigor of manhood, with a prospect to immortalize himself 
if he, as a patriot, constitutionally fulfilled his high trust ; with all 
this to sustain, to steel him, and to give him strength and firmness in 
his duty towards the army, Mr. Lincoln is compelled to write to Mc- 
Clellan, "Blenker's division was withdrawn before you left here, and 
you know the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought, acqui- 
esced in it." 

He thereby proves that at the very beginning of the campaign, the 
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States (as 
General Hitchcock testifies in the court of inquiry) was manifestly 
under great anxiety ; that at the Department he discussed the dispo- 
sition to be made of part of the army, with unmilitary, irresponsible 
chiefs of bureaus ; that he submitted the plan for the campaign, made 
by the General-in-chief, to the discussion and approval of his subor- 
dinate officers, — thereby destroying discipline in the army — that he 
yielded to unconstitutional pressure ; that he did that for which Win- 
field Scott had sentenced himself to be cashiered. 

The Commander-in-Chief destroyed the plans prepared by the 
General-in-Chief; he gave to that General detailed orders in matters 
of which he had no knowledge ; — he lost his head. As the Com- 
mander-in-Chief was unconstitutionally pressed right or left, forward 
or backward, so was our brave army, unmilitarily sent forward to- 
day and recalled to-morrow ; moved to the East now, and ordered 
West the day after. The Commander-in-Chief thus prevents the 
success in the field, which the President declares to be necessary be- 
fore anything else. 

The telegraphic orders and instructions from the Commander-in- 
Chief, and from the Secretary of War to General McDowell, with 
that General's replies and reports thereto — the President's letter to 
McClellan, of April 9th — all his other letters published at the court, 
but in particular the Secretary of War's letter of military instruc- 
tions, May 17, 1862,t to Major-General McClellan, in the face of Mc- 

f SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL m'dOWELL. 

War Department, April 11, 1862. 
Major-General McDowell, Commanding : 

Sir — For the present, and until further orders, you will consider the 
national capital as especially under your protection, and make no movement 
throwing your force out of position for the discharge of this primary duty. 

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 



42 

Clellan's orders of March 16th, and April 1st, and of McDowell's tel- 
egraphic remonstrances — show a degree of unprincipled misrepresen- 

general m ( dowell to the president. 

Headquarters, Department of the Rappahannock, ) 
Opposite Fredericksburg, May 24, 1862. ) 

His Excellency the President : 

I obeyed your order immediately ; for it was positive and urgent, and, per- 
haps, as a subordinate, there T ought to stop ; but I trust I may be allowed 
to say something in relation to the subject, especially in view of your remark 
that everything depends upon the celerity and vigor of my movements. I beg 
to say that co-operation between General Fremont and myself to cut off Jack- 
son and Ewell is riot to be counted upon, even if it is not a practicable impos- 
sibility ; next, that I am entirely beyond helping distance of General Banks, 
and no celerity or vigor will be available so far as he is concerned ; next, 
that by a glance at the map it will be seen that the line of retreat of the 
enemy's forces up the valley is shorter than mine to go against him. It will 
take a week or ten days for the force to get to the valley by the route which 
will give it food and forage, and by that time the enemy will have retreated. 
I shall gain nothing for you there and lose much for you here. It is, there- 
fore, not only on personal grounds that I have a heavy heart in the matter, 
but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have 
all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just 
accomplished. 

I have ordered General Shields to commence the movement to-morrow 
morning. A second division will follow in the afternoon. Did I understand 
you aright that you wish that I personally should accompany this expedition? 

VeryYespectfully, IRVIN M'DOWELL. 

THE president to general m'dowell. 

Washington, May 24, 1862. 

Major General McDowell : 

I am highly gratified by your alacrity in obeying my orders, The 
change was as painful to me as it can possibly be to you or to any one. 
Everything: now depends upon the celerity and via;or of your movements. 
^ h P * ' A.LINCOLN. 

GENERAL M'dOWELL TO SECRETARY STANTON. 

Headquarters, Department of the Rappahannock, ) 

May 24, 1862. j • 
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary ofWar : 

The President's order has been received and is in progress of execution. 
This is a crushing blow to us. 

IRVIN McDOWELL, Major-General. 

the president to general m'dowell. 

Washington, May 24, 1862. 
Major-General McDowell : 

General Fremont has been ordered, by telegraph, to move to Franklin 
and Harrisonburg, to relieve General Banks, and capture or destroy 
Jackson and Ewell's forces. You are instructed, laying aside for the 
present the movement on Richmond, to put twenty thousand men in motion 



43 

tation, self-conceit, vaccillation and military imbecility, as never before 
disgraced men, controlling the armies of a great nation, engaged in a 
struggle for life and death. 

at once for the Shenandoah, moving on the line, or in advance of the line, 
of the Manassas Gap Railroad. Your object will be to capture the force 
of Jackson and Ewell, either in co-operation with General Fremont, or, in 
case want of supplies or transportation interfered with his movement, it is 
believed that the force which you move will be sufficient to accomplish the 
object alone. The information thus far received here makes it probable 
that, if the enemy operates actively against General Banks, you will not 
be able to count upon much assistance from him, but may have even to 
release him. Reports received this moment are that Banks is fighting 
with Ewell, eight miles from Harper's Ferry. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

War Department, ) 
Washington, City, D. C, May 17, 1862. $ 

Major- General George B. McClellan, Commanding Army of the Poto- 
mac, before Richmond : 

Your dispatch to the President, asking for reinforcements, has been 
received and carefully considered. The President is not willing to un- 
cover the capital entirely, and it is believed that even if this were prudent, 
it would require more time to effect a junction between your army and 
that of the Rappahannock, by the way of the Potomac and York rivers, 
than by aland march. 

In order, therefore, to increase the strength of the attack upon Rich- 
mond at the earliest possible moment, General McDowell has been ordered 
to march upon that city by the shortest route, He is ordered — keeping 
himself always in position to cover the capital from all possible attack — so 
to operate as to put his left wing in communication with your right, and 
you are instructed to co-operate so as to establish this communication as 
soon as possible. By extending your right wing to the north of Richmond, 
it is believed that this communication can be safely established, either 
north or south of the Pamunkey river. In any event you will be able to 
prevent the main body of the enemy's forces from leaving Richmond, and 
failing, in overwhelming force, upon McDowell. He will move with be- 
tween thirty-five and forty thousand men. 

A copy of the instructions to Major-General McDowell are with this. 
The specific task assigned to his command has been to provide against any 
danger to the capital of the nation. At your earnest call for reinforce- 
ments, he is sent forward to co-operate in the reduction of Richmond, but 
charged, in attempting this, not to uncover the city of Washington, and 
you will give no orders, either before or after your junction, which can 
keep him out of position to cover this city. You and he will communicate 
with each other by telegraph or otherwise, as frequently as may be neces- 
sary for efficient co-operation. 

When General McDowell is in position on your right, his supplies must 
be drawn from West Point, and you will instruct your staff officers to be 
prepared to supply him by that route. 

The President directs that General McDowell retain the command of the 
Department of the Rappahannock, and of the forces with which he moves 
forward. 

By order of the President, 

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 



44 

Mr. Edwin M. Stanton orders Major-General McClellan, then at 
the head of a large army, in the field — among other things— "to use 



THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF THE ARMY TO GENERAL MCDOWELL. 

Washington, April 30, 1862. 
Major-General McDowell, commanding Department Rappahannock : 

General : — The Secretary of War has given me authority to inform 
you that you can occupy Fredericksburg with such force as in your judg- 
ment may be necessary to hold it for defensive purposes, but not with a 
view to make a forward movement. H. VAN RENSSELAER, 

Inspector-General United States Army. 

SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL MCDOWELL. 

Washington, April 23, 1862. 
Major-General McDowell, Aquia Creek : — 

The President directs that you should not throw your force across the 
Rappahannock at present, but that you should get your bridges and trans- 
portation all ready and wait further orders. 

EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 

SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL MCDOWELL. 

Washington, May 24, 1862. 
Major-General McDowell: — 

In view of the operations of the enemy on the line of General Banks, 
the President thinks that the whole force you designate to move from 
Fredericksburg should not be taken away, and he therefore directs that 
one brigade, in addition to the one designated to leave at Fredericksburg, 
should bo left there — this brigade to be the least effective of your com- 
mand. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 

general m'dowell to general mcclellan. 

Headquarters, Department of the Rappahannock, ) 
Manassas, June 12, 1862. £ 

Major-General G.B. McClellan, Commanding Department of Virginia, be- 
fore Richmond : 

The delay of Major-General Banks to relieve the division of my command 
in the valley beyond the time I had calculated on, will prevent my joining 
you with the remainder of the troops I am to take below, at as early a day as 
I named. My third division (McCall's) is now on the way. Please do me 
the favor to so place it that it may be in a position to join the others as they 
come down from Fredericksburg. 1 11 VI N McDOWELL, 

Major-General Commanding. 

GENERAL M'DOWELL TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN. 

June 10, 1862. 
Major General McClellan. Commanding Department of Virginia, before 

Richmond : 

For the third time I am ordered to join you, and hope this time to get 
through. In view of the remarks made with reference to my leaving you, 
and not joining you before, by your friends, and of something 1 have heard as 
coming from you on that subject, I wish to say 1 go with the greatest satis- 
faction, and hope to arrive with my main body in time to be of service. Mc- 
Call goes in advance by water. 1 will be with you in ten days, with the 
remainder, by Fredericksburg. IRVIN McDOWELL, 

Major-General Commanding. 



45 

the 'corps d'armee' under General McDowell, after it shall have 
reached Hanover Court House — 140 miles from Washington — for the 
reduction of Richmond; hut in attempting this, not to issue any orders 
which can lead General McDowell out of position to cover the City of 
Washington." 

We wanted testimony, given in open court, to the identity of the 
above letter before we believed it possible that any person outside a 
lunatic asylum could give such instructions. 

Against the talent, skill, and strategical combinations of the most 
experienced and most daring of the Confederate generals, with their 
large armies, intelligently and heartily supported by their govern- 
ment, General McClellan and his gallant army, forsaken by the 
administration, had, in the seven days' battle, defeated them all, had 
accomplished what they considered impossible to be done ; because 
in strategy and in tactics it eclipsed anything recorded in history.* 
The Army of the Potomac had at Harrison's Landing gained an im- 
pregnable position, and the only strategical base for a successful 
attack upon Richmond ; which to move to at the outset, McClellan 
was prevented by the Merrimac's undisturbed control over the James 
River. 

The army was here preparing for a new movement against the 
rebel capital, and waiting for recruits to fill up the ranks of the old 
regiments, and for reinforcements by other corps ; when Major-Gene- 
ral Halleck, the newly-appointed General-in-Chief of the armies of the 
United States, visited General McClellan's head-quarters from July 
24th to 27th. Very soon after, the army of the Potomac was with- 
drawn from Harrison's Landing and from the Peninsula, and although 
this dangerous movement was accomplished in the most masterly 
manner and withont the loss of a single man, it has, nevertheless, 
been declared by the strategists of all nations to be the most unpar- 
donable strategical blunder committed, so far, during this war. 

The principal object of the campaign of 1862, it must not be lost 
eight of, had been aggressive operation against the rebellion in gen- 
eral, and against llichmond, for its capture, in particular. Aggressive 
warfare had been demanded by the people and by Congress ; it could 
hardly be undertaken early enough to satisfy this universal demand ; 
for this purpose the administration had asked, and had received, 
with unexampled liberality, men and means ample in every respect. 
The government had ordered aggression, and General McClellan had 



* For a detailed description of these battles, see "George B. McClellan 
from August, 18(31, to August, 1862." N. Y., H. Dexter, 113 Nassau st. 



46 

planned everything in the most perfect manner to accomplish that 
distinctly stated object. 

General Halleck, "although far West, could not help being fully 
aware of this. In his report the General says of his visit to head- 
quarters : " The main object of this consultation was to ascertain if 
there was a possibility of an advance upon Richmond from Harrison 's 
Landing, and if not, to form some plan of uniting the armies of Gen- 
eral McClellan and General Pope on some other line." 

General Halleck cannot for a moment have doubted the possibility 
to advance upon Richmond from Harrison's Landing ; that possibility 
existed then and exists now. The General wants to say, we think, 
he went to consult with General McClellan what reinforcements he 
needed to insure the capture of Richmond ; because the General at 
once says : " I took the President's estimate of the largest number 
of reinforcements that could be sent to the Army of the Potomac ;" 
and, besides, he nowhere states, or even insinuates, that he discovered 
it to be impossible to advance upon Richmond from Harrison's Land- 
ing. Thus considering the question of reinforcements, the principal 
and fundamental one, how does General Halleck proceed — he bases 
his action in this the most important operation in the war, the first 
one he is called upon to perform in his new office (to which he has 
been appointed undoubtedly with the object to obviate the grievous 
and ruinous blunders resulting from the mismanagement of military 
affairs by unmilitary men), he bases his decision in this matter — 
.almost of life and death to the nation — upon the estimate of the 
President, of the very unmilitary man who, by his false estimates of 
the enemy's strength and intentions, and of his own ability to com- 
prehend and direct military movements and matters, had materially 
contributed to the destruction of the army of General Banks, to the 
uselessness of General McDowell's army, and to the dangerous com- 
plications on the Peninsula, from which General McClellan had so 
miraculously extricated his army. He bases it upon this estimate, 
although a few hour's careful investigation of his own, would have 
convinced him that the President's estimate was far from the mark, 
would have shown that of the 300,000 men called for by the Presi- 
dent (July 2d), thousands of new volunteers were daily placed at the 
disposal of the government. Pending the entire discussion of this 
matter of reinforcement, he does not state that he ever took the pains 
to ascertain for himself what forces there were disposable; but 
against the most conclusive argument of the ablest general in the 
nation, that his orders, if carried out will be disastrous to the best 



47 

interests of the country ; he always rests upon the estimates of a 
third person. When it finally appeared that General McClellan con- 
sidered a reinforcement of 35,000, ten thousand less than under 
McDowell had heen taken from him, necessary to insure the occupa- 
tion of Richmond ; when General McClellan had explained to him 
how futile all attempts must he against Richmond from other direc- 
tions, how the heart of the rebellion is at Richmond, how one effective 
blow struck there will accomplish what cannot be accomplished any- 
where else by ever so many blows, even then General Halleck does 
not survey the entire field of his resources himself, and overlooks — 
what afterward occurs to him — that there is a corps under General 
Cox in Western Virginia which can easily be spared, to supply the 
same number of men sent from Pope's army at Fredericksburgh to 
Harrison's Landing, which with General Burnside's corps and ten 
thousand more of Pope's army — the rest of which ought to have been 
withdrawn to the fortifications near Washington — would have 
amounted to 35,000 men and would have given us Richmond. 

When, resting upon this vague estimate, the General arrived at the 
false conclusion that he cannot send 35,000 men to General McClel- 
lan, he thinks "the only alternative now left was to withdraw the 
Army of the Potomac to some position where it could unite with that 
of General Pope, and cover Washington at the same time that it 
operated against the enemy." Although General Wadsworth had an 
army of over 20,000 men behind strong entrenchments in and near 
Washington ; although that city was in no manner menaced by the 
enemy ; although General Pope, with about 40,000 men, was near 
that city with no other reasonable object in view but to form an army 
of observation arid protection around the national capital — General 
Halleck, by his ill-advised decision, changes the aggressive operations 
against the rebel capital, which formed the basis of the entire cam- 
paign, to a strategy of defense, for which he has to draw the attacking 
forces from the enemy's capital, at once relieved by this unparalelled 
strategical blindness. 

We say that General Halleck drew the attacking enemy from 
before Richmond because his statement that about the 3d of August, 
" he received information that the enemy was preparing a large force 
to drive back General Pope, and attack either Washington or Balti- 
more, which gave him uneasiness Jor the safety of the cajntal and 
Maryland, and I repeatedly urged upon General McClellan the neces- 
sity of moving his army. The evacuation of Harrison 1 s Landing, 



48 

however, was not commenced till the lkth, eleven days after it was 
ordered."* 

The impression which General Halleck endeavors to create, that on 
the strength of" the information he received" he ordered the junction 
between the two armies, is flatly contradicted by the evidence under 
oath in the Porter court-martial, where it is distinctly stated, that on 
20th day of August, when General McClellan was at Fortress Monroe 
and General Porter was at Newport News, the first information was 
received of movements from Richmond toward the Rappahannock ; 
that, in other words, General Lee did not stir a man from Richmond 
till General Halleck by the withdraAval of McClellan made for him 
the opportunity. Even if the evidence of this fact had not been fur- 
nished by the court-martial, a cursory reading of General Halleck's 
Report shows that it contains as strong a self-contradiction of the 
insinuation made by its author. 

If General Halleck learned and believed, before he ordered the 
junction, that Lee was about to advance with his whole force on 
General Pope, he would have ordered General McClellan to remain 
at Harrison's Landing — to advance on and take Richmond the 
moment Lee had left ; then turn round, cut off Lee's supplies, 
attack him in the rear, and crush him between his own army and that 
of Pope. In the attempt of concealing the truth, the General-in- 
Chief stands self-accused, either of a stupidity unpardonable in a 
drummer boy, or of a determination to leave Richmond in possession 
of the rebels rather than that General McClellan should have the 
honor of its capture. 

We look in vain over the report of the General-in-Chief for an ex- 
planation, why he directed the forces from the peninsula, when finally 
he ordered their withdrawal to Aquia Creek, and not to Alexandria. 
The army of General Pope, which to strengthen was General Hal- 
leck's object, while he intended to cover Washington also, was "be- 
tween Sperryville and Warrenton Junction ; this position could be 
reached from Alexandria, with its spacious wharves and railroad 
facilities, by railroad in by far shorter a time, say three or four days, 
than of necessity it took the same forces to disembark at Aquia 
Creek, which possessed none of the facilities above alluded to, whence 
the troops had a longer march over ordinary roads; and while this 
march lasted were completely, unavailable for the protection of the 

* The definite order of General Halleck is dated' August 6th, therefore the 
evacuation on the 14th was only eight days after it. 



49 

city of Washington ; while on the road from Alexandria, per Fairfax, 
Manassas Junction, and so forth, they were always between the 
enemy's forces, if there were any, en route for the Capitol, or Wash- 
ington. The mistake made in the selection of Aquia Creek is a fur- 
ther proof that the General-in-Chief 's plan was ill-considered in the 
arrangements for its execution, as it was unjustifiable in its con- 
ception. 

After a very detailed and minute description, of the lamentable 
campaign under General Pope,* (almost a verbatim extract of a long 
report by General Pope, September 3, 1862, to which the General 
alludes as Exhibit No. 4, but which is not published with this report,) 
of the credit for which the General-in-Chief claims a considerable share, 
he says, " Although this short and active campaign was, from causes 
already referred to,t less successful than we had reason to expect, it 
had accomplished the great and important object of covering the Cap- 
itol till troops could be collected for the defence." In the report of 
September 3d, 1862, dated, Headquarters Army of Virginia, (with- 
out stating where they are,) General Pope distinctly states at the 
co?nmencement, that the object of his campaign, according to the in- 
structions received at Washington, has been to draw the rebel army 
under Lee away from Richmond to the Rappahannock, and thereby 
to enable the army of the Potomac to leave Harrison's Landing, 
and be saved from utter destruction ; towards the close of his report, 
he congratulates himself and the army of Virginia on the successful 
accomplishment of this object. With both the reports before us, and 
considering that General Halleck does not dispute General Pope's 
official statement to the General-in-Chief himself, we must say, either, 
one or the other of the two authors perverts the truth ; or the 
General-in-Chief drew the rebel army intentionally from Richmond 
to Washington for the great and important object of afterwards 
covering that city with the army under Pope against capture. 

But in this object, which he states has been accomplished, every - 

* See page 31 to 45, Part I. 

f General Halleck says : " For some unexplained reason, General Porter 
did not comply with this order of General Pope, and his corps was not in 
the battles of the 28th and 29th. v For this so-called unexplained reason 
of non-compliance with the order of General Pope, the latter presented 
charges against General Porter, and a court-martial convened in the city of 
Washington gave General Porter an opportunity to prove that it was a physi- 
cal impossibility to execute the order of General Pope. The Judge Advocate, 
after all the evidence was in, had not a word to sustain any of the charges . 
4 



50 

body knows General Halleck signally failed, so much so that he had 
officially to declare, although he does not say so in his report, that it 
was impossible* f to save Washington from invasion by Lee's army exr 
cept by giving the entire command to General McClellan. 

In his letter from Berkley, Virginia, August 4, 12 M., General 
McClellan indicates to the General-in-Chief — as far as in his position he 
has a right to do — the only wise plan of operations, that is, to with- 
draw half of Pope's army to a strict defence of the city of Washington, 
n case that should be menaced, and to send the rest, with Burnside, 
and all other troops he designates, to Harrison's Landing ', because, 
said he, " here is the true defence of Washington ; it is here on the 
bank of the James River that the fate of the Union should be decided," 
which is just as true to-day as it was on the 4th of August. General 
Halleck is not justified in saying in reply to this letter, referring to 
his plan of uniting the two armies, " only one feasible plan has been 
presented for doing this. If you or any one else had presented a bet- 
ter one, I certainly should have adopted it." In the first place, it is 
the business of the General-in-Chief to devise the plan ; in the second 
place, General McClellan had not only suggested the only good plan, 
but has, in detail, explained it. General Halleck either could not or 
would not understand it. Four short weeks after McClellan had ex- 
plained it to th© General-in-Chief, and had done so in vain, he proved 
by its practical execution how good a plan it was. 

When he had only a portion of the old army left yet, and that, 

deprived of some of his best generals, and when the enemy, flushed 

with victory, was near Washington, and actually threatening it, 

General McClellan left a force about equal to half of Pope's last 

, at my of Virginia for its defence, and with the rest he whipped Lee 

Q^j. of Maryland, saved Washington and Baltimore at Antietam, 

and » ip e< ^ away }n Maryland the shame of Halleck and Pope in 

Virginia ' w ^i cn ^ ea ^* i s hardly noticed in General Halleck's report. 

Thus \ Te see ' wnen * ne direct interference of President and 
Sercetarv o V ^ar with the well-matured plans of General McClellan, 
retarded thei " execution and increased the work, hardships, and the 
sufFerinsrs of th e arm y> tna * General Halleck, although he was told 
by General Mcfi e ^ an wna * would be the consequences, in his reck- 
less ambition a d conceit, in one mad order actually annulled the 
entire ohiect of tb campaign, and undid all that been done in its 
execution. 

Cedar Mountii P* ' nesy i^ e ' Manassas, Bull Run, Chantilly, and 
other fields drenched with "' the bl °° d of brave men ' for whicn mother's 



51 

* tears never needed to have been shed ; 35,000 in killed, wounded 
and prisoners, winch, had he sent them to General McClellan, would 
have secured Richmond to us ; the national capital again menaced by 
the foe ; the heart of rebellion saved and snatched from the grasp of 
our army ; years added to a already long war at a million dollars per 
day — all this we charge as a part of the result of the immeasurable 
military imbecility of the General-in-Chief, that led him in the face of 
the fullest argument, to annul the wise plan and override the counsel 
of George B. McClellan * 



* EXBIBIT NO. 1— A COPY IN CYPHER. 

Berkeley, Va., August 4 — 12 M. 
Major General Halleck, Commander-in-Chief: 

Your telegram of last evening is received. I must confess that it has 
caused me the greatest pain I ever experienced, for I am convinced that the 
order to withdraw this army to Aquia Creek will prove disastrous in the 
extreme to our cause. I fear it will be a fatal blow. Several days are 
necessary to complete the preparations for so important a movement as this, 
and while they are in progress, I beg that careful consideration may be given 
to my statement. This army is now in excellent discipline and condition. 
We hold a debouche on both banks of the James River, so that we are free to 
act in any direction, and with the assistance of the gunboats ; I consider our 
communication as secure. 

We are 25 miles from Richmond, and are not likely to meet the enemy in 
force sufficient to fight a battle until we are fifteen to eighteen miles, which 
brings us practically within ten miles of Richmond. Our largest line of land 
transportation would b© from this point twenty-five miles, but with the aid 
of the gunboats we can supply the army by water, during its advance, cer- 
tainly to within twelve miles of Richmond, with land transportation all the 
way. From here to Fortress Monroe is a march of about seventy miles, for 
I regard it as impracticable to withdraw this army and its material, except 
by land. The result of the movement would thus be to march 145 miles to 
reach a point now only twenty-five miles distant, and to deprive ourselves 
entirely of the powerful aids of the gunboats and water transportation. Add 
to this the certain demoralization of this army, which would ensue, the terri- 
ble depressing effect upon the people of the North, and the strong probability 
that it would influence foreign Powers to recognize our adversaries ; and these 
appear to me sufficient reasons to make it my imperative duty to urge in the 
strongest terms afforded in our language, that this order may be rescinded, 
and that far from recalling this army, it be promptly reinforced to enable it 
to resume the offensive. 

It may be said that there are no reinforcements available. I point to Gen- 
eral Burnside's forces, to that of General Pope, not necessary to maintain for the 
strict defence in front of Washington and Harper's Ferry ; to those portions as 
the army of the West not required for a strict defence there. Here, directly 
in front of this army, is the heart of 'the rebellion. It is here that all our 
resources should be collected to strike the blow which will determine the fate 
of tills nation. All points of secondary importance elsewhere should be 
abandoned, and every available man brought here. A decided victory here, 
and the military strength of the rebellion is crushed. It matters not what 
partial reverses we may meet elsewhere; here is the true defence of Wash- 
ington ; it is here on the bank of the James River, that the fate of the Union 
should be decided. 



52 

The startling evidences of a studied attempt, by every sort of per- 
version of truths and half truths, and by the artful torsion of facts, 
to throw upon General McClellan the responsibility for the reverses 
and disasters, invited by General Halleck himself, unnecessarily 
and against the most earnest warning, had hardly ceased to form the 
principal subject of astonishment and discussion, when the news of 
General Burnside's ill-fated attempt to cross the Rappahanock at 
Fredericksburg, gave a fresh shock to the already trembling nation. 
The army of the Potomac was on the 14th November divided in three 
grand divisions under command of Major-General Sumner, Hooker 
and Franklin respectively* while Major-General Sigel had chief corn- 
Clear in my conviction of right, strong in the" consciousness that I have 
ever been and still am actuated solely by love of my country, knowing that 
no ambitious or selfish motives have influenced me from the commencement 
of this war, I do now, what I never did in my life before, I entreat that this 
order may be rescinded. If my counsel does' not prevail, I will, with a sad 
heart obey your order to the utmost of my power, devoting to the movement, 
whatever skill I may possess, whatever the result may be, and may God grant 
that I am mistaken in my forebodings, I shall at least have the internal satis- 
faction that I have written and spoken frankly, and have sought to do the 
best in my power to arrest disaster from my country. 

GEO. B. McCLELLAN, Maj.-Gen. 

* This division of the army, and the appointment of the commanding 
Generals took place per order and in the name of General Burnside — that 
is, to conform to the well-established principle* that whatever concerns 
the army entrusted to a general has to be performed by him and in his 
name. The violation of this principle by the Commander-in-Chief, when 
per war order No. 2, March 11, 1862, he himself designated the generals 
to command the various corps of the army of the Potomac, as well as the 
divisions of which each corps should be composed, was the first petty 
malice practised against General McClellan. 

GENERAL ORDER— No. 184. 

Headquarters Army of the Potomac, ) 
Near Warrenton, Va., Nov. 14, 1862. £ 

First The organization of a portion of this army into three grand di- 
visions is hereby announced. Thes« grand divisions will be formed and 
commanded as follows : ' , , , ,. . . , 

The Second and Ninth corps will form the right grand division, and 
will be commanded by Major-General E. V. Sumner. 

The First and Sixth corps will form the left grand division, and will be 
commanded by Major-General W. B. Franklin. 
' The Third and Fifth corps will form the centre grand division, and will 
be commanded by Major-General Joseph Hooker. 

The Eleventh corps, with such other troops as may hereafter be assign- 
ed to it, will constitute a reserve force, under command of Major-Gene- 
ral Sigel. 

Assignments of cavalry and further details will be announced in tuture 

orders. 



53 

mand of all the reserves. It was then concentrated and rapidly 
moved toward Fredericksburg. General Sumner's grand division 
leading, arrived at Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, about the 18th 
of November; the other two grand divisions soon followed and took po- 
sition — General Sumner on the right, General Franklin on the left, and 
General Hooker in the centre. Having put their artillery in position, 
the army on the 12th of December crossed the river under the pro- 
tection of a dense fog, over six pontoon bridges, built during the day. 
On the 13th the troops formed in line of battle in an open plain within 
range of the enemy's masked infantry and artillery. They were led 
to attack a position naturally strong, and made impregnable by three 
tiers of entrenchments well mounted with heavy guns, which had 
never been reconnoitred by the commanding general. They were 
repulsed with the loss of about 12,000 men, without having reached 
the enemy's lines to damage them. On the left wing General Frank- 
lin had succeeded in repulsing a sallying party, and taken from them 
some 700 prisoners; but he was also forced to retreat to'liis original 
line of formation. The enemy did not permit us to remove our wounded 
from within a certain distance nearest to their lines, but did not mo- 
lest our army during the night in and near Fredericksburg, which 
was completely controlled by the enemy's guns, as were, also the up- 
per pontoon bridges. On the 14th, by a tacit understanding, hostili- 
ties ceased, and at midnight on the 14th, in one of the severest storms 
on record, the army of the Potomac recrossed the river, took up all 
the bridges without the least molestation on behalf of the enemy, and 
reached the left bank at 8 o'clock A. M. on the 15th of December. A 
few hundred stragglers who had not been aware of the retrograde 
movement, fell into the hands of the enemy. 

Thus December 13, at midnight, closed, amidst a severe storm, the 
second act of the grand military tragedy begun in October, when 
General McOlellan was forced, in execution of a miserable strategical 
idea, to cross the Upper Potomac; the first part of which concluded 



Major-General Sigel will exercise all the powers in respect to his com- 
mand above assigned as the commanders of the grand divisions. 

- The commanders of these grand divisions will retain with them their 
respective staffs. 

Fourth — The senior officer of the Second, Third, Fifth and Sixth corps 
will take command of these corps, and will forward to these headquarters 
a list of recommendations of officers to fill their staffs. 

Eighth — All orders conflicting with these are hereby rescinded. 
By command of . Major-General BURNSIDE. 

S. WilliXms, Assistant Adjutant General. 



54 

Nov. 7 , at midnight, in a snow storm, by the arrival ot General 
Buckingham at Reutertown. 

Major-General Burnside, it has to be remembered, on more than 
one occasion, refused the command of the army of the Potomac, ten- 
dered him by one or the other of the men in power at Washington. 
Brave, honest, heroic soldier as he is, he had invariably declared that 
he well knew he was not capable for such a command. At the same 
time he expressed his conviction that General McClellan, before any 
body else, was the man for the highest command. 

When on tho 7th of November he received the President's order 
assigning the command of the army to him, he intended again to de- 
cline, and only accepted after a long deliberation with other officers, 
hecause his resignation before the enemy might produce an evil effect 
on the army just deprived of the Commander in whom they possessed 
unlimited confidence. 

Whatever, therefore, has been contributed to the disastrous affair 
of Fredericksburg, by the shortcomings of General Burnside in ex- 
perience, in foresight, in decision, in proper combination, and in 
tactics on so large a scale, has all to be charged against him who, 
without cause, removed from command the best qualified and most 
experienced general, and compelled Burnside to assume command. 

Our high opinion of General Burnside as a noble, patriotic gentle- 
man, and as a daring, heroic- officer, does not relieve us from the duty 
we owe to the country, to history, to military science, and to truth, to 
point out the errors and mistakes in the arrangement and in the exe- 
cution of the movement against Fredericksburg. 

To move the entire army from the line near Gordonville, we con- 
sider bad strategy, because it unmasked to the enemy our real inten- 
tions, and enabled him to meet us in full force well prepared ; he 
moved on the shorter line, and could reach Fredericksburg in less 
time than our army. 

The various propositions of Generals Sumner and Hooker respec- 
tively to cross the river with their corps above, and move on the right 
bank, in our opinion prove that there existed roads by which the 
entrenchments of the enemy could and ought to have been recon- 
noitered, and their strength ascertained, sufficiently to prevent the 
commanding general from an attempt to take them by an infantry 
attack in front. The evidence before the commission shows that no 
reconnoissance had been made. . 

A naturally strong position, strengthened by three tiers of entrench- 
ments, each mounted with many long-range guns, supported by 



55 

infantry behind breastworks, under command of an experienced 
general, a position approachable only over an open field about a mile 
and a half long, bordering on a river with an open low bank — such 
a position is a Malakoff, a Mont-martre — if it has to be taken at all, it 
can be taken only a la Malakoff, or a la Mont-martre, that is, with 
the spade — by a gradual approach in counter works, and with heavy 
artillery ; attacked in front by infantry alone, it will, in ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred, prove a rock from which the attacking column 
will recoil crippled and bleeding, to be annihilated in its retreat to the 
river. 

Such is the position occupied by the Confederate army near 
Fredericksburg, and because it is such, all the bravery of our gal- 
lant soldiers did not even enable us to learn from our own observa- 
tion, how strong an army the enemy had in and around this position 
We think the attack, as directed by General Burnside, a great 
mistake, and the escape of bis army almost miraculous. 

The idea to break this line of entrenchments by an infantry charge 
in the hope of piercing it and then destroying the enemy, we consider 
erroneous. 

Napoleon Bonaparte based his tactics of breaking the centre of the 
enemy's army — which he practised on open battle-fields only — upon 
the superior discipline, and the more perfect movability of the French 
army under his own command, which enabled him to whip the two 
parts of the broken hostile army separately, because one half of them 
would be, for a time, without a head, and the half that remained with 
the general-in-chief would be numerically inferior to his own army 
This principle is not applicable to a chain of entrenchments placed in 
succeeding tiers ; here every entrenchment is a citadel in itself ; in 
case the enemy should carry one, each of the rest has its own com- 
mander, and has lost only a comrade. The striking similarity 
between the rebel position at Fredericksburg and that at Cedar 
Mountain (the former on a larger scale) ought to have taught General 
Burnside the necessity of adopting a different plan. Had General 
Banks, at Cedar Mountain, not been able to put his excellent artillery 
in a position from which it did terrific execution upon the enemy's 
batteries, his entire army would have been destroyed.* 

Not to attempt the building of a pontoon bridge in face of an euemy 
before the opposite bank has been cleared from the foe, is a rule as 
old as military science itself. This rule General Burnside did not 



* See pages 36 and 37, Part I. 



56 

remember until after he had lost half a day, and many men of the 
most valuable troops in any army — most valuable, because they can 
be replaced with great difficulty. To send the unarmed engineer out 
upon the end of a bridge to be shot down by sharpshooters behind old 
buildings, is not war. The engineer regiments, in particular the 
Fifteenth New York Volunteers, have earned for themselves a glo- 
rious name; they had built the two bridges on the left wing, and 
enabled General Franklin to cross about noon ; while the Fiftieth 
Regiment, engaged on the bridges on the right wing, had been unable 
to accomplish anything; the Fifteenth were sent for — with a cheer 
they set to work, and completed the bridge on the right — and so did 
the work of both. 

The manner in which General Burnside concluded to carry out a 
certain plan of operations ; and when remonstrated with by one or 
the other of his officers, becomes convinced that his plan was imprac- 
ticable or deficient, had to be changed or altogether to be abandoned, 
shows that he is not possessed of that circumspection, foresight, and 
forethought jndispcnsible in the commander of a large army. 

That notwithstanding these errors, oversights and mistakes, the 
army crossed the river, and could, two days later, return to the left 
bank, is no evidence that these errors and mistakes were not com- 
mitted. 

General Franklin says : " For some unaccountable reason they (the 
rebels) allowed us to cross, and did not open their batteries." We 
can find but one plausible explanation why the enemy did not ear- 
nestly oppose the crossing of our army on the 12th. 

The war has lasted longer than the people at large had expected, 
and the cry for a decisive battle had been heard ever since the battle 
of Antictam. When General Lee found that Burnside actually com- 
menced to move his army to the right bank of the Rappahannock, we 
think he considered this • his opportunity to satisfy the clamor for a 
decisive battle, and concluded to let our entire army cross under a 
faint resistance ; sufficient to make us more eager to follow up the 
imaginary advantage ; to repulse our first attack as mildly as it could 
be done ; thereby inducing us to repeat it with all our forces ; thus 
opening a space between our rear and the city for the purpose of 
throwing cavalry and infantry masses, from his extreme right and 
left, into our rear, while all his artillery opened on our front, and 
while his long-range guns destroyed our bridges in the centre and on 
our right. That, under such circumstances, Burnside's entire army 



57 

would have either been destroyed or captured, cannot very well be 
doubted ; the evidence of Generals Burnside, Sumner, and Hooker 
before the Investigating Committee proves that the first part of the 
above programme was carried out to the letter, and how near General 
Burnside came to carry out the second part designated to be per- 
formed by our army. The heavy rain and severe gale prevented tli£ 
rebel army noticing the withdrawal of our army to Falmouth until it 
was accomplished, and presented to General Burnside the golden op- 
portunity to save the rest of his noble army from certain death. 

When the news of the fearful slaughter at Fredericksburg became 
known, the people with one voice said, this is the fault of the admin- 
istration at Washington — it is not Burnside's fault. General Burn- 
side theroupon had a letter to General Halleck published, wherein he 
exonerated everybody else from blame, and declared himself and 
alone responsible for the plan, for its execution, and for its failure. 
This letter, if genuine, does more credit to the brave Burnside's noble 
heart than to his head. How could he expect the army ever to have 
confidence in him as a leader after he openly admits to have com- 
mitted so grave mistakes 1 It did not calm the excitement. Soldiers 
are the severest and the best judges of their officers, here as well as 
in every other country. 

Thus, by the appointment of General Burnside to the chief com- 
mand, against his better judgment, the country has lost an excellent 
commander of a corps, but has not found a fit General, another evi- 
dence how true it is that a good soldier at the head of a division 
makes a melancholy failure when placed beyond that. 

.The Senate Committee on the War thought proper to. pro- 
ceed to Falmouth and there to investigate the matter. This ex- 
amination proves that General Burnside on the 9th of November, at 
the request of General Halleck, sent his plan of operations on Fred- 
ericksburg to Washington ; that on the 4th of November the Gene- 
ral-in-Chief, the Quartermaster-General and General Haupt visited 
him at his headqtfarters in Warrenton. There they discussed his 
plan in all its details, and it was agreed that General Burnside should 
at once make all preliminary arrangements for the immediate execu- 
tion of the same, so that the moment it should receive the approval of 
the President, which General Halleck. was to procure, the most speedy 
execution thereof should at once take place. General Halleck, at the 
headquarters of General Burnside, on the 12th of Nov., 7:10, P.M., 
issued a telegraphic order to General Woodbury at Washington 



• 58 

to have the pontoon and bridge material transported to Aquia Creek* 
After his return to Washington the General-in-Chief saw the Presi- 
dent, who approved Burnside's plan. General Halleck hereupon 
telegraphed to the latter to go ahead as he had proposed. General 
Burnside concentrated his army and moved Sumner's division to Fal- 
mduth, where this officer had to come to a dead halt, hecause the pon- 
toons which he expected to find were non est. To the want of pon- 
toons, without which the Rappahannock could not he crossed, all the 
general officers attrihute the disastrous affair at Frederickshurg. 

General Franklin says : I would like to impress as firmly upon the 
Committee as it is impressed upon my mind, that this whole disaster 
has resulted from the delay in the arrival of the pontoon bridges. 
Whoever is responsible for that delay is responsible for all the disas- 
ters that have followed. General Burnside testifies that he was under 
the impression that General Halleck who gave the orders for the pon- 
toons to be sent to Aquia Creek, would see to it that this order was 
properly carried out ; because otherwise he would have carried it out 
himself. General Woodbury testifies that he received Halleck's or- 
der — that he found it impossible to start the pontoons as early as was 
expected, and then says — General Halleck's order to me on the 13th 
made it apparent that the army was preparing to march on Fred- 
ericksburg. Fearing that the movement would be precipitate, I went 
to General Halleck's office and urged him to delay the movement 
some five days, in order that the necessary preparations might be 
made to insure success. To this he replied that he would do nothing 
to delay for an instant the advance of the army upon Richmond. I 
rejoined that my suggestions were not intended to cause delay, but 
rather to prevent it. General Halleck admits that he went to War- 
renton, and there at length discussed General Burnside's plans ; that 
he issued the order to General Woodbury ^to send the pontoons ; that 
he told Burnside to made all preliminary preparations to execute his 
plans when approved ; that he got the President's approval of Burn- 
side's plans, and that he telegraphed to the latter to go ahead as he 
had proposed. That on his return to Washington he was called upon 
by General Woodbury and notified of the impossibility to move the 



* Warrenton, Nov. 12—7 : 10 P. M. 
Brigadier General Woodbury, Engineer Brigade : — 

Call upon the Chief Quartermaster, Colonel Rucker, to transport all 
your pontoons and bridge materials to Aquia Creek. Colonel Belgor has 
been ordered to charter and send me one hundred barges to Alexandria. 

H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief. 



59 



pontoons as early as could be expected ; but as to the direct request 
of Gen Woodbury to postpone the movement, and as to his reply 
thereto his recollection is indistinct. The General-in-Chief of the 
army tries to clear himself from the culpable neglect of duty with 
which he is charged in the above testimony, by saying — " that all the 
troops in and around Washington were under command of General 
McClellan ; that he issued his orders direct to the commanding officer 
at Washington with one single exception; that the troops should be 
moved from the command of Washington until I was notified by Gen. 
McClellan or the commanding officer here (Washington.) I was told 
that Burnside when he relieved McClellan stood in the same position." 
We have before had occasion to see what, since September last, 
was the official position of General McClellan in relation to General 
Halleck ; to see that the latter had no control, or authority, or inter- 
ference whatever with the operations of General McClellan ; in fact, 
to see that officially he did not know anything about them. This 
relation between them was one of the principal causes of McClellan's 
removal from command. 

General Halleck by this part of the testimony wishes to show that 
he considered he had as little right to interfere with the army under 
General Burnside as when it was under General McClellan. O that 
for Burnside 's sake and the army this had been true ! That this was 
not the case, that the official relation between the General-in-Chief 
and General Burnside, at the head of the army of the Potomac, was 
as different from that between General McClellan and General Hal- 
leck as black is different from white. This is clearly shown by the 
very presence of General Halleck at Burnside's headquarters; by his 
asking Burnside to prepare a plan and to submit it to him ; by his 
discussion r of Burnside's plan and by his taking it to the President for 
approval. 

General McClellan did not trust the General-in-Chief with the 
secret of his plan for the campaign, although the former over and 
over again asked him to let him know it; still less would he allow the 
least part in the execution thereof to.be directed by General Halleck. 
When General Halleck communicated to General McClellan anything 
about the intended operations of the army, he did it only as especially 
instructed by the President, not as General Halleck. This self-con- 
tradiction prevents the General's acquittal on the plea that officially 
he had nothing to do with the general supervision of the operations of 
the army under General Burnside. 

To the question—" Was there or not any agreement or understand- 



60 

" iiig between you and General Burnside tliat the pontoons and'any 
*• ttores necessary for him to cross the river and move toward Fred- 
" ericksburg, should be furnished to him by the authorities here, 
<' (Washington,) without his looking after them himself '?" — General 
Halleck answers, " Yes, sir. 1 told General Burnside that everything 
" was at his disposition. He must make his own requisitions and 
" give his own orders ; that I would not interfere, except to assist in 
" carrying his views out as much as I could ; whenever anything was 
" reported to me as not being done that I would render all the assis- 
" tance in my power." 

Here then is from his own mouth his promise to Burnside that he 
would ass>t in carrying out his views as much as he could, and when 
anything was " reported as not being done (as was reported by Gen. 
Woodbury) that he would render all assistance in his power." All 
this he promised in regard to orders given by General Burnside ; how 
much more was he in duty bound to do the some in regard to the 
order to General Woodbury, which he himself had issued. 

General Halleck knew that General Burnside's view was to take 
Fredericksburg by surprise if possible ; that therefore the time be- 
tween the arrival of the vanguard of his army in view of the city, 
and between its actual occupation, should be as short as possible ; he 
must have known that the appearance and the halt of Burnside's 
army at Falmouth, would be the signal for the enemy to put up his 
defensive works. With this knowledge in his possession ; forwarned 
by General Woodbury of the dangers which an arrival at Falmouth 
of the army, before the pontoons were there, was sure to involve ; 
asked to notify General Burnside of the impossibility to have the 
pontoons at Falmouth at a time when Burnside, (ignorant of the 
impediments) could reasonably expect their arrival — the General-in- 
Chief of the army wantonly violates his different promise to General 
Burnside, to " render him all the assistance in his power" — does not 
even give him a single notice of what officially and alone, in conse- 
quence of the order to General Woodbury having been sent by Hal- 
leck, has been reported to him and not to General Burnside. By this 
criminal willful omission he allows the army of the Potomac to be led 
to destruction, and thus becomes principally responsible for the lives 
of the 12,000 brave slaughtered soldiers. 

We will not pause to dissect the atrocious indescribable meanness 
with which the General-in-Chief, after having deceived him with false 
expectations, which he knowingly disappointed, attempts to cast the 
blame of the failure on General Burnside. As an officer in the army 



61 
f i 

of the United States, as the General-in-Chief of his army, General 
Halleck as well as any other officer and soldier, is in duty bound to 
give immediate information to the proper officers of everything, be it 
ever so trifling, that by any possibility can have any bearing upon the 
movements or operations of the army or any part thereof. 

So universal is this duty enforced in all armies, that if, for instance, 
a single wagon of the pontoon train had, on the march, broken down 
near any of the pickets of our army, such an accident would have 
been immediately reported to the nearest officer, who would have 
been in duty bound to send this report to the place where the train 
had started, (Washington,) as well as to the point of its destination, 
(General Burnside's Headquarters) ; or had a scouting party passed 
the broken wagon they would have made a report to the nearest 
officer. The importance of this rule for the safety of an army is so 
self-evident, that we merely allude to it. The General-in-Chief's 
principal and first duty is a general supervision of the execution of 
the plans of the campaign ; to procure perfect concert of action between 
all the distinct and separate corps and branches of the army designed 
to cooperate ; to urge the slow to move more rapidly, and to hold back 
those that move too fast. Under this general duty of the General-in- 
Chief^ General Halleck was hound to notify General Burnside with- 
out a moment's delay, of the impossibility to start the pontoons as early 
as the latter had a right to expect it. That General Halleck himself 
gave the order about the pontoons to General Woodbury direct, 
— that he impressed General Burnside with the belief that he also 
would see to its execution, and thereby caused him not to enquire any 
more about it— that by issuing the order himself he had induced 
General Woodbury to report the impossibility " to start the pontoons 
at once" to General Halleck and not to General Burnside, (as he would 
have done, had the order to him been issued by the latter) and— Hal- 
leck's promise to Burnside *' that he would render him all the assist- 
ance in his power" — all these circumstances aggravate the culpability 
of the General-in-Chief. 

The private soldier who falls asleep when on picket duty and 
thereby o.mits to watch over the safety of the camp, suffers death, 
whether or no his neglect causes a surprise or capture of the camp ; 
because of the bad example to the army and of the impossibility to 
preserve proper discipline if such neglect, should be permitted to pass 
unpunished. 

The intentional omission of the General-in-Chie&to notify General 
Burnside — when expressly requested to do so by General Woodbury 



-62 

— of the unavoidable delay in the start of the pontoons, upon which 
the operations of Burnside's army were based, constitutes a crime by 
far greater than many of those, under the articles of war punished 
with death. It caused the wholesale slaughter of 10,000 Union 
soldiers. 

The discipline of the army, which constitutes its efficiency ; the 
safety of the country ; justice to the 10,000 slain on the bank of the 
Rappahannock ; justice to their parents, their widows, their orphans; 
justice to those who may yet be called to fight their country's battles ; 
justice to all demand that the Commander-in-Chief order Major-General 
H. W. Halleck to be tried before a court-martial on the charge of 
" wilful neglect of duty which he was requested to fulfill — such neglect 
having caused the loss of 10,000 men, aud the disastrous defeat of our 
army at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. 

On the 1st day of January, 1863, President Lincoln issued, in ac- 
cordance with his proclamation of September 22, 1862, his so-called 
Emancipation Proclamation. 

Washington, January 1. 
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
A PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas, on the. twenty-second day of September, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and »ixty-two, a proclamation was 
issued. 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by 
virtue of the power in me rested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and 
Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the 
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary 
war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of Janu- 
ary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, 
and in accordance with my purposes so to do, publicly proclaimed for the 
full period of one hundred days, from the day first above-mentioned, order, 
designate, as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof 
respectively are this dayfin rebellion against the United States, to wit : 

Arkansas. 

Louisiana— (Except the parishes of St. Bernard, Placquemines,\Jeffer- 
son, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption," Terre 
Bonne, Lourche, Ste. Maria, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city 
of New Orleans.) 

Mississippi, ' 

Alabama, 

Florida, 

Georgia, 

South Carolina, 

North Carolina, and 

Virginia — [Except the forty-eight counties] designated as West Vir- 



63 

ginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth 
City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities- of Norfolk 
and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts are for the present left pre- 
cisely as if this proclamation were not issued.) 

And, by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order 
and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States 
and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, FEEE. And that the 
executive government of the United States, including the military and 
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said 
persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain 
from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence, and I recommend to 
them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable 
wages. 

s^ss^ Done at the city of Washington this first day of January, in 
5 sfat I * ne y ear °f our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
l ' ) three, and of the Independence of the United States of 

v-*-v~^ America the eighty-seventh. 

* Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President, 

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. 

The President issues the above order by virtue of the power vested 
in him as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United 
States ; that is in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. (This order 
is counter»igned by the Secretary of State, not by the Secretary of 
War.) In this capacity Mr. Lincoln is undoubtedly subject to the 
rules and usages applicable to the orders and actions of the Com- 
manders-in-Chief of other armies, and he places himself on a par with 
them. 

No orders of a commander have effect beyond the territory in 
actual possession of the armies under his command ; nor beyond the 
time of such actual occupation. 

The orders of a commander become effective only as far as he 
possesses the "power at any moment to enforce them. The Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the army of the United States surrounds the 
territory wherein his war order sets forever free all the slaves, with a 
circle of slave States distinctly exempt from the operation thereof, 
and so makes it impossible for himself to enforce his order. The 
right to take private property from the inhabitants of the enemy's 
country is not recognized by the rules of civilized warfare. 

When Napoleon Bonaparte had entered Eussia Prince Poniatowski, 
an eminent Polish nobleman, is said to have suggested to him, how 
deadly a blow he could strike against Russia by issuing a decree 
liberating all the serfs. The emperor replied : " France would curse 



64 

me were I to do it, because I would thereby give the Russians the 
right to rob every Frenchman of his private property, should they 
ever enter France ; and, my friend, do not forget that I could not 
liberate the Poles till I occupied Poland, and therefore I cannot 
liberate tbe serfs, even were I inclined to do so, till I have occupied 
Russia." Napoleon's opinion in matters like this is entitled to 
respect. 

The tendencies of the civilized world during tbe last two centuries 
have been to reduce as much as possible the so-called war power, 
upon which alone Mr. Lincoln bases his right to issue the proclama- 
tion ; to reduce it in the interest of civilization and humanity. The 
excesses of the French in Algiers, and those of the English in India 
and in China, have called forth a cry of horror and indignation 
throughout Christendom ; they were committed ag'ainst foreign and 
half-barbarian unchristian nations. How insignificant would these 
excesses appear compared with the horrors p,f a servile insurrection of 
3,000,000 Africans against our own erring brothers, with whom we 
are connected by thousands of family ties, and with whom we hope, 
one of these days, again to live in peace and harmony as one nation. 
The Commander-in-Chief apprehends such an insurrection, because he 
distinctly enjoins the slaves to abstain from it. 

Whether this unholy war be continued for years to come, or 
whether the battle, Dec. 13, at Fredericksburg has been the last great 
battle ; to the military world, the period from August 1861 to January 
1863, will forever form a subject of intense interest, of the most scru- 
pulous investigation and professional speculation ; on account of the 
rapidity with which the Union army of about 450,000* men was put 
in the field ; on account of the magnificent armament of every branch 
of this vast army, unequaled in any other country ; on account of the 
— in so short a time — unheard-of expenditure of about $1,200,000,000, 
and the army not paid — one of the most demoralizing neglects to any 
army ; in consideration of the fact that in General McClellan the 
nation has found a general whose genius and skill as a strategist and 
as a tactician, by competent judges of all nations is admitted to be 
unsurpassed by the most famous captains of any age, while in Gen- 
erals F. J. Porter, Franklin, Sumner, Hooker, Heintzelman, Burnside, 
Rosecrans, Keys, Stoneman, Banks, Hancock, Sigel, and many others, 



* We believe the future will show that the above number has, at no time 
during the war ; been exceeded by all our armies actually under arms ; all 
the Reports of the Secretary of War to the contrary notwithstanding. 



65 

we possess intelligent, competent, and brave commanders of corps 
d'armee ;* on account of the undisputed bravery, endurance, and 
superior fighting qualities generally displayed by our army ; on 
account of the little effect, as yet, produced upon the army by the 
corrupting influences to which, in almost every conceivable form, it 
has been subjected, and on account of the absence of any lasting ad- 
vantage really gained by so large and expensive an army in so 
many hard-fought battles. 

In justice to the loyal citizen- soldiers of the North — in justice to 
their military talent and application — in justice to their heroic bearing 
and endurance — we present to the military world the followiug brief 
record of the Union Army and their performances in Virginia and 
Maryland. 

Mr. Lincoln, the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, when 
the present war commenced entertained the erroneous idea that the 
rebellion could be suppressed within ninety days by a posse-comi- 
tatus ; he called out 75,000 volunteers for ninety days ; over-ruled 
General Scott's military advice, and sent those " ninety days" men, 
unorganized, into what was expected to be a spectacle militaire for 
the members of Congress and their friends, but what shaped itself 
into the disgraceful rout— Bull Run the First. 

General McClellan was then placed in the command resigned by 
General Scott. In the capital, surrounded by the enemy's forces, he 
organized a new army, as it was best possible under existing circum- 
stances. He prepared a plan for a campaign, contemplating the cap- 
ture of Richmond and the suppression of the rebellion ; a plan that, 
as proved by official documents lately come to light before the court- 
martials above referred to, was not only perfect in its strategical con- 
ception, but, if ever equalled, was certainly unsurpassed in detailed 

* Among the few gratifying reflections called forth by this war, is the high 
standard of professional efficiency universally possessed by the officers gradu- 
ated from the Military Academy at West Point ; whether they have continu- 
ously held commissions in the United States Army, or whether, for a time, 
they had resigned, followed other callings in civil life, and had received new 
commissions at the outbreak of the present war. No military academy can 
endow the students with genius, nor turn out commanders-in-chief j generals 
able judiciously to command armies of 150,000 men or more, are born hardly 
once in a century : bat the fact that almost all our present most able generals 
were majors or captains two years ago ; the exemplary manner in which 
large funds passing through their hands are always properly accounted for 
without any loss to the country, place West Point, as a military educational 
institute, at a par, if not ahead of, similar institutions in any other country. 
There are exceptions, to be sure — that of General Halleck the most striking of 
all — but they are few and far between, 

5 



66 

elaboration, in completeness, in its comprehensive ramifications, in its 
far-reaching anticipation of events, as well as in the necessary prepar- 
ations to meet them. 

This plan the general intended to keep secret till after the com- 
mencement of its practical execution ; its success could be interfered 
with by the result of battles only. In conformity with his plan, the 
army of the West had commenced operations in the field ; had been 
successful in every one of their numerous engagements from Somer- 
set, Bowling Green, Fort Henry, to Columbus ; when a few days be- 
fore the army of the Potomac was to commence the execution of the 
part assigned to them, the President, Commander-in-Chief, officially 
ordered General McClellan to communicate to him his plan. The 
general had to obey orders. The Commander-in-Chief assured his 
enquiring friends that this time success Was certain ; he proved the 
correctness of his views by explaining the plan : a few hours later the 
Confederate General Johnson, at Manassas, ' knew the plan; he at 
once retreated with his army to Richmond. The friends of the Com- 
inander-in-Chief thereupon censured General McClellan for having 
allowed the escape of Johnson's army frem Manassas. 

The President, Commauder-in-Chief, relieved General McClellan 
as General-in-Chief of the army, and assigned this position '• do fac- 
to " to Mr. Edwin M. vStanton, Lawyer and Secretary of War, 
General McClellan embarked his army for the, peninsula ; on his 
arrival there he found that 45,000 men udder General McDowell, by 
order of the Commander-in-Chief, had not been permitted to em- 
bark, and had been placed at the disposal of Mr. Edwin M. Stanton ; 
that his most perfect disposition of the forces under Generals Banks, 
Wadsworth, Abercrombie and others, between the Rappahannock, 
the Shenandoah, and the Potomac, and especially in front of Wash- 
ington, had all been countermanded by the Commander-in-Chief and 
Mr. Edwin M. Stanton. 

The betrayal of McClellan's plan for the campaign to the enemy 
enabled the latler to concentrate his forces in positions heretofore 
undefended. This and the numerical deduction of 45,000 men from 
his army, considerably delayed the advance of the army on the 
peninsula. 

The Commander-in-Chief's friends censured McClellan's slowness. 

When the army of the Potomac was within a few miles of Rich- 
mond, General McClellan asked now to have restored to him the 
45,000 men withheld from his army ; they then stood Within four 
days march of his present lines ; the Commander-in-Chiaf did not 
permit them to rejoin McClellan's army. 



67 

The Confederate army at Richmond, largely reinforced from all 
parts of the Confederate States, hereupon attacked the army of the 
Potomac with the intention of destroying it by superiority of num- 
bers and by advantage of position. By most sublime strategy, 
executed in the most perfect mannea— by the heroic bravery of his 
officers and men, McClellan snatched from their combined efforts the 
victory, which the Confederate generals considered certain ; he 
secured the admirable position at Harrison's" Landing, and sent the 
rebel army that ventured to attack Malvern Hill badly whipped to 
Richmond. 

A dozen battles the army of the Potomac had fought on the penin- 
sula without having received any reinforcements ; McClellan now 
asked for 3-5,000 men to replace the losses in battle and for the pur- 
pose of taking Richmond ; he points out where there are such that 
can be spared ; he explains the importance of taking Richmond now, 
and from Harrison's Landing, and he foretells the consequences of a 
neglect to do it. 

In the face of all this, General H. W. Halleck, just appointed 
General-in-Chief, peremptorily orders General McClellan to remove 
his entire army from Harrison's Landing to Aquia Creek, a place 
from which the ostensible object of this movement can hardly be ac- 
complished. 

The President Commander's friends bitterly complain that by 
McClellan's fault and slowness, the campaign on the peninsula had 
not given Richmond to Mr. Lincoln, and that the expected results 
have not been achieved. Arriving at Aquia Creek, the army of the 
Potomac, in separate corps is, by the Commander-in-Chief, detailed 
to the command of General Pope, and McClellan finds himself stripped 
of command. 

Ten days had hardly passed, however, before the Confederate 
General Lee, with his army, appears in front of Washington, driving 
the demoralized and defeated army of Mr. Pope before him. 

Self-preservation now becomes law supreme with the President 
Commander ; whether or no his friends and his advisers are a unit 
on that point. He himself is convinced that General McClellan alone 
can preserve him and his friends. He reinstates the general in his 
high command, who. accepts only on a condition not to be interfered 
with by anybody. The President Commander agrees to this and 
promises to stick to it. 

In two weeks McClellan fights the battles of South Mountain and 
of Antietam, drives General Lee out of Maryland back across th.f j 



68 

Potomac, and finishes the campaign in Maryland. He now asks for 
shoes, clothing, and other necessaries, for the want of which the army 
suffers and cannot move ; all his most urgent requests don't bring the 
shoes. The Commander-in-Chief's friends circulate rumors that there 
exists no want of shoes and clothing in the army and then find fault 
with McClellan, that he complains of an imaginary want, and the 
Secretary of War enters into an elaborate correspondence with the 
General-in-Chief for the purpose of proving that there exists no want 
in the army ; they both signally fail in their object, but they prove 
their hostility against McClellan, the neglect of the War Department, 
and the want of rectitude in the General-in-Chief. 

The President Commander's friends now censure McClellan severe- 
ly, because he permits the army to lay still and allows the Confeder- 
ate army to stop in the Shenandoah Valley. 

In the mean time McClellan is maturing his plan for the new cam- 
paign. Remembering the betrayal in March last of his plans, to the 
enemy, he refuses to communicate it to anybody. 

The President Commander thereupon in the latter part of October, 
forced General McClellan to cross the Upper Potomac, and to com- 
mence the execution of a miserable strategy, not his own. A few 
days later, when the entire army is face to face with the enemy, the 
President Commander again removes McClellan from command, as- 
signing it to Major-General Burnside, but not assigning any reason 
for the removal. A few hours after the receipt of this order McClellan 
transfers his command, tells his army to " stand by Burnside as you 
stood by me," and departs. The President Commander's friends 
thereupon rejoice — they congratulate the President, themselves and 
the nation on the appointment of General Burnside as his successor, 
because they know him to be the man in whom the army reposes the 
greatest confidence, and who will they are sure, take Richmond before 
the first day of January next. Burnside himself declares over and 
over again that he is not competent to lead so large an army; that 
McClellan, whom he knows as he knows himself, is the best man to 
command, because he has the soundest head and the clearest military 
perception of any man in the United States. But Burnside is a 
soldier, and the President Commander's friends are not, therefore 
Burnside's opinion can have no weight against theirs in military mat- 
ters. 

People in England, in France and in Russia, who have had a 
Cromwell, two Napoleons and Striletzers are astonished. They 
wonder that McClellan, at the head of 150,000 men devotedly attach- 



23. f 



c_. 



69 

ed to him, surrounded by his friends, obeyed the order of the Presi- 
dent, instead of marching to Washington and deposing him and his 
advisers. These people do not know the patriot McClellan. 

General McClellan when in Washington planned and worked for 
his country's cause ; when in the field he fought for that cause ; when 
misrepresented and slandered, when degraded, he suffered for that 
cause. Whether in the tented field, or in the Cabinet, McClellan 
never lost sight of his country's cause ; neither the President nor a 
General-in-Chief, nor all the members of the Cabinet could for an in- 
stant obstruct from his clear view, his country's cause. He conquered 
self and kept silent for his country's cause; but the most powerful 
orator's brilliant eloquence could not have better enlightened the 
people about our country's cause and its mismanagers, than George B. 
McClellan has done by his dignified silence. 

May no inferior man ever have presented to him the same tempting 
opportunity and take advantage thereof. 

General Bumside intending to cross the Rappanannock at Fred- 
ericksburg, communicated his plan to General Halleck, and relied for 
the execution in Washington of a simple order, upon that gentleman's 
promised assistance. Herein he was deceived, and the consequence is 
the loss of 10,000 men, December 13, at Fredericksburg, which so 
paralyzed the army of the Potomac that in five weeks it has not 
stirred. 

Thereupon the President Commander issues an order to the army 
wherein he declares, that the attack on Fredericksburg was no error, 
and the repulse only an accident. On examination the Commanders 
of the three grand divisions of the army of the Potomac declare that 
the attack was an error, and Unsuccessful retreat, a military accident 
to the enemy. 

The President Commander's friends thereupon say Burnside never- 
theless is the best commander ; it is only the fault of the enemy that 
they did not get whipped. Burnside tenders his resignation : it is not 
accepted. The President Commander's friends are confident that the 
Emancipation Proclamation will conquer the rebellion. 

Meanwhile we find at the close of the campaign in Virginia and 
Maryland of 1862, the strong outworks of Richmond transferred to 
the right bank of the Rappahannock. 

January 18th, 1863. F. A. P. 



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